Customer Reviews

Bunny Berigan: Elusive Legend Of Jazz

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Mr. Dupuis has quite successfully transferred his years of scholarly research and genuine personal affection for the Swing Era into a very readable and insightful time capsule of that era. My father, Mort Stulmaker, was a bassist for Bunny Berigan during this unique time in music history and, so, I had a special reason for reading this book. I became thoroughly immersed in it. Through the author's narrative and in-depth intense descriptive ability, I felt I was living a musician's life and experiencing all the joys, successes, failures and heartaches that went with it. He has captured it in total honesty. I must also add that I had the wonderful experience of attending the 25th Bunny Berigan Jazz Festival in Bunny's hometown of Fox Lake, Wisconsin. After reading Mr. Dupuis' book and then attending the Festival, I came away with even a deeper appreciation for the special quality of the music and times of that era. I highly recommend this book.

This is, I believe, Mr. Dupuis's first book and it shows to an extent. He spends too much time on his visits to Bunny's hometown in Wisconsin and devotes a big chunk of one chapter to a generic discussion of alcoholism. That's the bad news. The good news is that this is the best researched and detailed biography of Bunny Berigan that has been done, it's in print, it's well (if not lavishly) illustrated, and Dupuis's recommendations for listening are excellent (my opinion and that of several fellow Berigan fans I checked with). Bunny Berigan was one of jazz's great musicians, a true "musician's musician." It was his solo at the Palomar Ballroom in California, while a member of the Benny Goodman orchestra, that nearly started a riot and is as good a starting point for the emergence of Swing as the dominant popular music form as any. Like too many of his era, Benny was a chronic alcoholic and he died a premature death because of his drinking. The modest amount of recordings he left still attract a following and through them his magic lingers on. Many of the greats of jazz (such as Louis Armstrong) were quick to list themselves as fans of his. This is the best biography of one of jazz's greatest trumpeters and one of its most tragic lost souls. If you want to learn about the life of Bunny Berigan or his music, this is your book. Also highly recommended for Swing Era/Music fans in general

Bunny Berigan's career as a jazz musician, in a very particular, almost god-given way, happened to co-incide with the swing era. At that, Bunny was one, who more than anybody of his contemporaries, contributed to justifying the the concept of swing, the real core of swinging jazz. One thing is all the memorable recordings he left behind, another thing is the many testimonies of those who were happy to listen to him alive. A word that often turns up about his performances, is "electrifying", expressed by or agreed upon by great leaders as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. It was very much due to Bunny's marvellous solo achievments,that
the two band leaders benefitted from a lot of many million hits in the thirties. Robert Depuis' biography is written with both admiration and an honest wish to pay a matter-of-fact tribute to one of the heroes of his youth. His book, "Bunny Berigan, elusive legend", is an immaculate account of Bunny's life and invaluable contribution to jazz music. I was very lucky to meet Bob Dupuis in Fox Lake in 2003 and get his dedication. His book has a very special and cherished place in my collection of jazz litterature.
Regards
Arve Somdahl
Norway