Typical of the legendary musical talent heard regularly and live on WNEW beginning in the 1930’s , was the “Bunny Berigan All Star Broadcasts.” The All Stars included Benny Goodman, Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Count Basie, Red Allen, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Krupa and other jazz greats. The photo below is the cover of a 1999 CD collection of broadcast sessions between 1936 and 1940, which includes recordings from “Jam Session,” a WNEW, broadcast of July 6, 1938 and a “WNEW Make Believe Ballroom” session on June 14, 1940. The collection also includes Berigan broadcasts on the “CBS Saturday Night Swing Club.”
All Star Broadcasts music CDs
Photographers: Edward Burke, Ken Whitten. All Star Broadcast songs.
Bunny Berigan’s trumpet solos during a 1935 tour with the Benny Goodman band, helped propel Goodman to “King of Swing” fame. By the summer of 1940, Berigan was bankrupt and had to dispand his own band. In failing health, due mostly to alcoholism, Berigan played for a time with the Tommy Dorsey band and toured with a small group of his own. Stricken by a hemorrhage on June 2nd, 1942, he was dead at the age of 33. E.B.
Photo: http://www.theorchard.com
Sources
Big Band Library. com http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/bunnyberigan.html Swing Music.net http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Music_Biography_Bunny_Berigan.html Answers.com http://www.answers.com/topic/bunny-berigan Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Berigan