Bunny Berigan was Louis Armstrong’s favourite trumpet player. We’ll be hearing radio broadcasts by Bunny Berigan on this week’s The Phantom Dancer.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 26 August and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

BUNNY

Bunny Berigan was the stage name of Roland Bernard Berigan.

He composed, sang, and most famously was a brilliant trumpet player. Of his compositions, we’ll hear a live recording of one, ‘Chicken and Waffles’, from a live 1936 radio broadcast on this week’s Phantom Dancer.

He was best known for his virtuoso jazz trumpeting. His 1937 classic recording of a song from a flop music, ‘I Can’t Get Started’ was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975. ‘I Can’t Get Started’ was Berigan’s radio theme when he launched his own band in 1937.

Bunny Berigan had learnt violin and trumpet and was playing in local bands by his mid-teens.

In 1930 he joined the Hal Kemp Orchestra and soon came to notice. He became a sought-after studio musician in New York as well as playing in the orchestras of Freddy Rich, Freddy Martin, Ben Selvin, Paul Whiteman and Benny Goodman. In fact, Goodman’s manager only got ‘that ace drummer man’ Gene Krupa to join the band by telling him Berigan was already on board.

After leaving Goodman, Berigan began to record regularly under his own name and to back singers such as Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, and Billie Holiday. We’ll hear him this week with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in early 1937. His solo on ‘Marie’ became one of his signature performances. We’ll hear a 1940 radio version. And, of course, a critic describing Berigan’s trumpet on the 1940 show had to bring up his alcoholism.

After leaving Goodman, Berigan began to record regularly under his own name and to back singers such as Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, and Billie Holiday. 

26 August PLAY LIST