Rowland Bernard “Bunny” Berigan (November 2, 1908 – June 2, 1942 – died at age 33) was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era.. He composed the jazz instrumentals “Chicken and Waffles” and “Blues” in 1935. His 1937 classic jazz recording “I Can’t Get Started with You” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975.
Berigan was born in Hilbert, Wisconsin, the son of William Berigan and Mamie Schlitzberg, and raised in Fox Lake, Wisconsin. A musical child prodigy, having learned the violin and trumpet at an early age, Berigan played in local orchestras by his late teens before auditioning for the successful Hal Kemp orchestra in 1928 or 1929.
Kemp first spurned the young trumpeter, reputedly because Berigan at the time had an uncertain tone, but any deficiencies were apparently resolved a year and a half later: this time, in mid-1930, Kemp hired Berigan. Berigan’s first recorded trumpet solos came with the Kemp orchestra, and he was with the unit when they toured England later in the year.
By the time the Kemp unit returned to the U.S. in 1931, Berigan, like fellow trumpeter Manny Klein, became a sought-after studio musician; Fred Rich, Freddy Martin and Ben Selvin were just some who sought his services for record dates. Berigan recorded his first vocal, “At Your Command”, with Rich that year. From late 1932 through 1933, Berigan was also employed by Paul Whiteman, before playing with Abe Lyman’s band in 1934.
He continued freelancing in the recording and radio studios, most notably with the Dorsey Brothers and on Glenn Miller’s earliest recording date as a leader in 1935, playing on “Solo Hop”. At the same time, however, Berigan made the association that graduated him to fame in his own right: he joined Benny Goodman’s re-forming band. Legendary jazz talent scout and producer John Hammond, who also became Goodman’s brother-in-law in due course, later wrote that he helped persuade Gene Krupa to re-join Goodman, with whom he’d had an earlier falling-out, by mentioning that Berigan, whom Krupa admired, was already committed to the new ensemble. With Berigan and Krupa both on-board, the Goodman band made the legendary, often disheartening tour that ended with their unexpectedly headline-making stand at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the stand often credited with the “formal” launch of the swing era.
Berigan was also a fixture on CBS Radio’s Saturday Night Swing Club broadcasts from 1937 to 1940, a coast-to-coast broadcast that helped further popularize jazz as the swing era climbed to its peak. YouTube Link: “Stardust”