|
| The 2007 Atlanta JAZZ Party! |
Comments by Phil Carroll . . .
Gabriel was an angel of God, said to be an angel of comfort to Man. We remember Gabriel as a trumpeter as Cole Porter testified in the fine tune Blow, Gabriel, Blow. Gabriel is certainly the leader of a great trumpet ensemble in Heaven, having received many marvelous players and, sadly, too many of them taken before their earthly prime.
One who comes to mind is Bunny Berigan, who in his brief 33 years was one of the most innovative jazz soloists of all time. He was the featured soloist with Benny Goodman on King Porter Stomp, Jingle Bells, and Blue Skies and with Tommy Dorsey on Marie and Song of India. He was immensely popular with the fans and was voted the favorite jazz trumpeter in the 1936 Metronome poll with five times as many votes as his nearest competitor. In 1937 he formed his own big band and debuted at the Pennsylvania Roof in the Spring.
The band showed a lot of promise, but never fulfilled that promise because Bunny was not as strong a bandleader as he was a horn player. He had good musicians and the guys loved working for him, but he was not a disciplinarian like Goodman, Dorsey or Miller. Playing with Bunny was fun. He was easygoing with the musicians and himself. His band lasted only three years and ended in bankruptcy. Along the way he discovered some fine players -- Ray Conniff, trombonist and arranger; a swinging pianist, Joe Bushkin, and a tap dancer turned drummer, Buddy Rich. The band made many records, several of the very good -- Mahogany Hall Stomp, Frankie and Johnny, The Prisoner's Song and Russian Lullaby. Though many were very commercial and forgettable, one record will be remembered fondly by many of us and live forever -- I Can't Get Started. Bunny plays magnificently and sings a poignant vocal. Nobody ever accused Bunny of being a fine vocalist, but he really "sells" this song. On June 2, 1942, Bunny Berigan died, a financially and physically broken man. He was not a success as a band leader but he was one of the best-liked musicians and certainly one of the most inspiring soloists ever.
Eleven years earlier, on August 6, 1931, Bix Beiderbecke, with the same initials as Bunny Berigan, had died of similar causes, alcohol being a contributor to the demise of both. Bix was 28 when he died, his rise to fame short but meteoric. Born in Davenport, Iowa on the Mississippi River, Bix heard jazz music on the river boats that traveled as far north as his home. It is likely that he heard Louis Armstrong on the boats, and also Emmett Hardy from New Orleans, a white boy prodigy on cornet playing professionally at 16.
Hardy came north on the boats and in 1919 left the band in Davenport to join the Carlisle Evans Band on the S.S. Capitol for eight months. At this time, Bix said he was influenced by Emmett who was only three months younger than he. Bix was from a prosperous middle class family in the lumber and coal business in Davenport. An indifferent student in school, he loved and excelled in music, both cornet and piano. In an attempt to gain a better education for Bix, his father enrolled him in Lake Forest Academy on the north side of Chicago. That proved to be the very worst place to put Bix because he could skip out of school and slip into Chicago and hear, as well as sit in with, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings at the Friar's Inn and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens!
Meanwhile, Emmett Hardy came to Chicago to augment the New Orleans Rhythm Kings but after a dispute with the Musicians' Union, returned to New Orleans to play briefly with Norman Brownlee's Orchestra. He was then inactive for the last year of his life with pulmonary tuberculosis. In 1925, Hardy died, tragically, unrecorded at a mere age of 22.
After being expelled from Lake Forest, Bix played on Lake Michigan excursion boats for the summer, then gigged in Chicago and joined the Wolverines in October 1923. Dick Voynow, piano, was the director of the Wolverines, but Bix was clearly the star. They were a big hit in the Midwest and recorded a dozen sides at the Gennett Record Co. in Richmond, Indiana in 1924. They went to New York and continued their success, but Bix left to join Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra. Jimmy McPartland took Bix' spot with the Wolverines. Both Trumbauer and Bix went with Jean Goldkett's orchestra until it disbanded in September 1927.
Next, they both joined Paul Whiteman, known then as the "King of Jazz". Whiteman was the top orchestra in the business. He conducted a ponderous group that often had 25 to 30 musicians. The arrangements were dated and lacked the drive and swing of Goodman and Dorsey less than a decade later. Many of the records don't have much life until Bix comes on with a 16-bar solo. His tone is clear and bright, and his ideas were creative and ahead of his time. He was not a good reader however and reportedly felt inadequate and even inferior. Players that worded with him envied his creative ability and he envied their ability to sight read anything put in front of them. His feelings of inferiority may have been the cause of his excessive drinking that led to breakdowns in health. He left Whiteman in 1929 and gigged around the New York area until he got out of a sick bed to play a Princeton club date. It was "either Bix or no job," the college boys said, so Bix went. Pneumonia set in and he died five days later on August 7, 1931.
James "Bubber" Miley was born in Aiken, SC, in 1903, but his family moved to NYC in 1909. Bubber took up cornet while in school, then joined the Navy at age 15 and served for 18 months. After discharge, he played with various bands in the New York area and went with Duke Ellingon in 1924 playing with Duke for 7 years. He was a master of the plunger mute and recorded many fine sides with the Duke. When Bubber left the Duke, Cootie Williams took his place. In 1930 he worked with Leo Reisman. Where segregation issues prevented his visible participation, he would be hidden from view by a screen! In late 1931, Miley (financed by Irving Mills) formed his own band that played in the Harlem Scandals show in Philadelphia and New York, but shortly after, ill from tuberculosis he was forced to stop playing. He entered the hospital in April 1932 and died a month later at age 29.
It is sad to think of these super talents dying so young, but it is also inspiring to know that each of these musicians received a gift that is rare, and in realizing it, were compelled to pursue the gift, whatever the consequences. In Bix's case, his parents were strongly opposed to his music and never did come around despite the fact that he reached the very top. Heartbreakingly, after Bix's untimely demise all his records he had mailed to his folks were found unopened, unheard, in the back of a closet. But today, he is honored at "home" -- there is a Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Festival each year in his hometown of Davenport. In 1981, 25,000 people attended the festival commemorating the 50th anniversary of his death.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of trumpeters who enjoyed a long and productive life. Of course, Louis Armstrong's career is well known to all jazz fans, and born on July 4, 1900, he lived to two days past his 71st birthday when he died in his sleep at his home in Corona, NY.
Another trumpeter who had an especially long career was Doc Cheatham. He began playing in the early '20s, learned to use mutes by listening to King Oliver, who gave him a mute that he used for the rest of his life. In the mid '20s he met and subbed for Louis Armstrong. He joined Cab Calloway during the depression and played lead trumpet for eight years. Later he played with bands led by Teddy Wilson, Benny Carter and Eddie Heywood. He began a singing career quite by accident at 72. When he sang and scatted a couple of choruses of What Can I Say Dear, After I say I'm Sorry during a recording session with Sammy Price, it was not planned, but the tape was running and so the track was issued. His singing was well received and he contiued to sing and play for the rest of his career. In 1995, at our 6th Atlanta Jazz Party, we honored two great jazzmen -- Milt Hinton and Doc Cheatham who was nearing 90. Doc played with his horn pointed skyward as if to say, "Gabriel, I'm coming your way." He continued to perform until two days before his death in 1997, 11 days shy of his 92nd birthday.
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bunny Berigan (November 2008) the contributions of these musicians endures as it is evident here today. The Atlanta Jazz Party thanks the fine players that continue to blow and create in this most American of music genres -- Supported by you, the jazz fans, who help keep it alive.