November 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of jazz trumpet
legend Bunny Berigan. During the month of November 2008, The Virtual
Victrola will feature the music of Bunny Berigan, both as a sideman and
bandleader.
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Any trumpeter who is serious about playing jazz, especially traditional jazz, will eventually be called to play the Vernon Duke-Ira Gershwin standard, "I Can't Get Started." We have Bunny Berigan to thank for that.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the song was discovered by John DeVries, an occasional songwriter and
friend of 52nd Street jazz musicians. He brought the sheet music to The Famous
Door and asked Red McKenzie's band to run it down during rehearsal. Bunny
immediately fell in love with the tune, and the band made it a regular
part of their nightly shows. The band recorded it on April 3, 1936,
with Berigan playing lead (no solo, though) and Red McKenzie singing
the lyric.
The Red McKenzie recording is a rather straight reading of the tune, but apparently the Famous Door band -- and especially Bunny Berigan -- had been doing much more with it than the McKenzie recording bears out. For Bunny Berigan was in the Vocalion studios ten days later with his own group, and their version of "I Can't Get Started" is a wonder. The performance begins with a straight reading of the tune, similar to the Red McKenzie version. Then Berigan sings the vocal chorus himself in a thin, slightly quivering voice that belies the power of the trumpet playing that follows. Berigan transitions out of the vocal chorus through a series of muscular trumpet cadenzas that lead from C major into D flat major, and then into a final bravura outchorus ending on a climactic high concert D flat.
With this one performance, Berigan formally invaded, and perhaps conquered, territory that had previously been the sole domain of Louis Armstrong.
Download Bunny Berigan and his Boys - I Can't Get Started
After Berigan formed his own big band, he commissioned pianist Joe Lipmann to score "I Can't Get Started" for the group. Lipmann added another series of trumpet cadenzas at the beginning of the tune, stretching its duration to nearly five minutes. But every note that Berigan plays on that record, cut for Victor on August 7, 1937, is absolutely astounding. Berigan seems to relish performing his solo work in front of a full big band, and the performance takes on a much heavier feel than the small group version waxed a year and a half earlier. Still, the song became a huge hit, and Victor was compelled to release not only the 12" four minute version, but also a commercial 10" version with the opening trumpet cadenzas omitted.
Download Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra - I Can't Get Started
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