“Downstream”
Composed by H. Lawrence, B. Nieson and Jay Milton; arranged by Joe Lippman.
Recorded by Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra for Victor on March 15, 1938.
Bunny Berigan, trumpet, directing: Steve Lipkins, first trumpet, and Irving Goodman, trumpet; Thomas “Sonny” Lee and Al George, trombones; Mike Doty, first alto saxophone; Joe Dixon (Giuseppe Ischia), alto saxophone; Georgie Auld (John Altwerger) and Clyde Rounds, tenor saxophones; Graham Forbes, piano; Tom Morganelli, guitar; Hank Wayland, bass; Dave Tough, drums. Gail Reese (Virginia Vieser), vocal.
The story and the myth:
During the swing era every band had to play and record pop tunes. Pop tunes then were generally written by composers who were either contracted to music publishing houses, or who wrote a tune on speculation, and then sold or placed it with a music publisher. Pop tunes were distinguishable from tunes written especially for Broadway plays or Hollywood films. They were also of course distinguishable from “originals” written by musicians who were either arrangers and/or sidemen with bands. But no matter where or how a tune originated, in order for it to be promoted, publicized and played, it first had to be published. Music publishers were therefore in a commanding position in the music business, and were extremely competitive with one another. They devised all kinds of ways to get tunes they were plugging (pushing, promoting) to be played in public before audiences. The best promotion for a tune would be for it to be played repeatedly on radio or in a feature film because those mass media reached large audiences. (Above right: the Brill Building, located at 49th and Broadway in Manhattan, in 1938. It housed the Paradise Restaurant on its second floor. The upper floors were occupied by many music publishers.)
Commercial records, at least in the late 1930s, were also a good way to promote a new tune, but certainly not the best because the Depression had hit the recording industry particularly hard, and many people did not have a lot of spare money to buy records, even the budget-priced labels like Decca and Victor/Bluebird, whose disks sold for 35 cents. (We must remember that money had a different value in the late 1930s: a 35-cent record then would cost about $5.00 in today’s money.) Victor disks sold for an incredible 75 cents each in the 1930s, generally ensuring small sales. Their price was reduced to 50 cents a disk in 1940 in an attempt to make them more competitive in the marketplace.
In terms of musical quality, some pop tunes were quite good, but the vast majority of them were bad. The song presented here, “Downstream,” falls somewhere in the middle. Without the Bunny Berigan/Victor recording of this tune, it likely would have disappeared.(1) But for whatever reasons it came to be recorded by Bunny Berigan for Victor in March of 1938, consequently we are able to hear that recording of it. Preservation of the tune itself is of small importance however. The more important reason for listening to this recording is to understand how important an artist’s interpretation of a song was to it securing an enduring place in the tradition of American music. Also, Berigan’s interpretation of “Downstream” provides an excellent demonstration of how good his band was when they recorded it, and how fine an arranger Joe Lippman was. Of course, Bunny’s trumpet playing on it was so individual that we know after only a few notes who is playing. And how he played!
All of this has been submerged however in a number of myths that began at the session when “Downstream” was recorded on the Ides of March 1938. These myths were unfortunately given false credibility because they became linked with of a number of other true but rather unfortunate happenings in Bunny Berigan’s career as a bandleader later in 1938. These usually humorous “Bunny Berigan stories,” true and false, were told with relish by people who knew Bunny, and they gradually became a part of the Berigan legend, especially after his death at age 33 in 1942, and remained in circulation, usually being embellished by each teller, for decades after. In my biography of Berigan, I tried to set the historical record straight, which was not easy seven or more decades after the events in question were alleged to have happened.
The jazz critic Leonard Feather (shown at right), in 1938 only recently arrived in the United States from England, was a guest at a part of the Berigan band’s March 15 recording session, which ran from 1:30 to 6:00 p.m. Soon after, he wrote the following:
“When you hear a band in person, it is customary, indeed instinctive, to pardon a slip here and there and if the ensemble work is less than perfect, a few faults may not prove offensive. But it was not until I heard Bunny and his boys down at the Victor studios that I realized the difference between a band that sounds fine and one that records well.
As I entered, Bunny was growling his way into one of those very low register choruses which have become his forte. The tune was a popular number, ‘Downstream,’ and the arrangement by the talented pianist, Joe Lippman. Bunny had already made several masters, but all had been spoilt, generally through some slip in his solo. As the buzzer called for silence and the next master went into action, Bunny got going nicely, then came just one sour note and he knew the master was wasted.
Next time, the band didn’t even get past the introduction as (trumpeter) Irving Goodman took a bow for the fluff that held up proceedings. Rose-cheeked and petite, Gail Reese sat in her chair, waiting for them to make a master in which they’d get as far as her vocal in the second chorus. ‘Now, just take it easy, this is going to be the one,’ said Bunny, quite calmly, for the seventh time. Because he has been a rank-and-file musician and feels the way his men do, Bunny is unlike many bandleaders. The master-and-pupil disciplinary method is entirely absent. Possibly he has erred on the side of leniency, for it was difficult for him to maintain law and order between takes, and it was clear that no amount of rehearsal would pave the way for a perfect master of ‘Downstream.’ It was just a matter of playing on until luck gave them three minutes of flufflessness!
Early 1938: Gail Reese waits to sing while Bunny Berigan plays. Behind him are saxophonists Georgie Auld and Joe Dixon and trombonists Sonny Lee and Al George.
After the next take, Bunny called out, ‘Wrap it up!’ By now, he was feeling the strain and to let off steam he started on a glorious impression of a street musician. This was funny enough to take everybody’s minds off ‘Downstream’ and there was a fresher approach to the next waxing. The time had come for me to leave Bunny floating ‘downstream,’ so I slipped out as the much-too-familiar strains of the introduction were striking up yet again.(2)
I wonder what Leonard Feather meant when he said that as he left the studio he was hearing “the much-too-familiar” strains of “Downstream” yet again? Didn’t he already suggest that Bunny had wrapped-up an acceptable take of “Downstream,” and was moving on to “the next waxing”? This ambiguity was enough to open the door for people to tell their own versions of the “Downstream” story for decades after the fact, and some whoppers were told!
The music:
“Downstream” was the first tune recorded by the Berigan band on March 15. To my ears, whatever strain there was in producing this recording is totally absent from the issued take, which is presented with this post. Joe Lippman’s arrangement is clearly something he and Bunny worked out which would showcase Berigan’s extraordinary ability to play his trumpet in its lowest register, then later as a contrast, in its high register. This is something Bunny often did impromptu when he constructed his jazz solos.
The eight bar introduction begins with a full band blast, brass on top, led by Steve Lipkins on first trumpet. Then the music quiets down, as Berigan moves close to the microphone to begin his solo.
Bunny lobs out huge, fat low notes in his first exposition of the melody (eight bars). Listen for the slight rasp he uses here. All of this is treacherously difficult from the standpoint of trumpet technique, that is why so few trumpeters have ever played much if at all in this lowest register.(3) But Berigan was trying to use his ability to play like this as another means of expressing his musical personality, not merely as a demonstration of his technical prowess.
The ensemble handles the eight bar bridge, brass forward at first, and then the saxophone quartet. When Bunny returns for another eight bars, he is paraphrasing the main melody in his middle register, and he’s moving up, heightening drama. He plays against an intensifying background of saxophones and the high-hat cymbals of master swing drummer Dave Tough. Another tract of ensemble playing of the secondary melody leads to a brassy modulation into the vocal.
Gail Reese’s chorus is handled professionally. She sings on pitch and swings a bit, though carefully, undoubtedly not wanting to make any missteps that would ruin what (if we believe Mr. Feather) was the seventh take. The background arranger Lippman fashioned for her to sing against consists of swirling saxophones with straight-muted brass punctuations.
Tenor saxophone soloist Georgie Auld then plays effectively on the bridge. When Berigan returns, his playing is low and raspy at first, then high and fiery. He growls over the humming reeds to finish this recording.
Bunny Berigan’s performance on this commercial recording of “Downstream” is exemplary, indeed exciting, throughout. His trumpet playing is masterful and expressive. This is a quintessential Berigan recording. No other trumpeter could ever have played this music as Bunny did.
The masthead of the British music publication Melody Maker, as it appeared in 1938. It was in this publication that the first version of the “Downstream” story was told.
A bit more story:
Leonard Feather was accurate in his reporting about Berigan’s style of leadership: Bunny was extremely patient with his musicians, and led by example. We must remember that the musicians in his band were mostly young men in their early twenties, some of whom were hyperactive. While it would be accurate to say that Berigan’s recording sessions were not grim, tense affairs (as those of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller could be), he nevertheless got the job done, often with excellent, indeed inspired results, by taking a generally lighthearted, relaxed approach to recording. But to say that Berigan was careless and not focused on the music would be inaccurate. In fact, one of Berigan’s sidemen, clarinetist/alto saxophonist Joe Dixon, some years later happened into a studio where Duke Ellington was recording, and was immediately struck by the similarities between Duke’s methods of leadership in the recording studio, and Bunny’s.
The reality of what actually happened in the recording studio the day the Berigan band recorded “Downstream” made no difference. Feather’s story was published in Melody Maker, and it acquired the authority of the printed word. Later it was exaggerated, and became a typically apocryphal Bunny Berigan tale: that Bunny required approximately forty!!! takes to make an acceptable master. There is no evidence in the Victor files indicating that Berigan made an amount of takes or tries even remotely near to forty for “Downstream.” Given the totality of the circumstances, the seven or eight tries Bunny took to get that low, growly melody statement that he was so intent to achieve, are understandable.
It should also be noted that the Berigan band recorded a total of four usable masters at that recording date, which was industry standard. To do that, they had to be doing something right!
This myth and others circulated widely during the summer of 1938, and they began to undermine Berigan’s reputation at a time when his career as a bandleader had finally gotten into high gear. In fact, 1938 was the year when Bunny’s music reached an apogee. Yet because of this story, and other incidents, some of which were true but were not in any way Bunny’s fault (and a few that were), his career began to ebb slowly.
In addition, and far more dire eventually, though no one including Berigan knew it in 1938, the disease that would eventually kill him at age 33 had already begun its inexorable progress.
As good as the Victor recording of “Downstream” is, the one Berigan made a few days later on March 27 while performing at and broadcasting from the Paradise Restaurant in Manhattan is even more inspired and exciting. Bunny’s contribution is especially soulful. The band personnel is the same as above, except that Joe Lippman was present on piano, and Johnny Blowers had replaced Dave Tough on drums. Here it is:
The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) There were a couple of other swing era recordings of “Downstream” or “Down Stream”: one by Andy Kirk (02-13-1937 on Decca), and another by Wingy Manone (01-12-1938) on Bluebird). They are collector’s items today.
(2) Melody Maker: June 11, 1938, cited in the White materials: March 16, 1938.
(3) Recordings by the great trumpeter Charlie Shavers exist where he plays in the very low register of his horn. Unfortunately, as often as not, when Shavers did this, he produced odd flatulent sounds that I do not think are particularly musical. Perhaps, for comic effect, that was his intention.
Here are links to some other great recordings by Bunny Berigan’s band:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2018/05/13/caravan-bunny-berigan-1937/
https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/11/14/high-society-1938-bunny-berigan/
https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/07/10/the-pied-piper-1938-bunny-berigan-and-ruth-gaylor/
https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/01/27/swingin-at-the-brill-building/
And the most famous of all Berigan recordings:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/10/05/i-cant-get-started-1937-bunny-berigan/
For what its worth, Mike, my ancient and battered copy of New Hot Discography lists no less than 6 issued titles from that March 15th session! It looks like “Rinka Tinka Man” took 4 attempts to get a satisfactory take, but beyond that, there are no gaps in the matrix numbers at all.
Of course, “Downstream” being the first number up, therefore gives us no numerical clue to how many (if any!) spoilt takes there were. However, 6 platters from 4½ hours of grafting very strongly suggests that Bunny was not messing about that day, and that the esteemed Mr Feather was telling porkies.
Mark, thanks for your comment and insights. The discographical information I have indicates that Berigan recorded four tunes on March 15, 1938 and then three more the next day. The session on March 16 ran from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. I suspect that this bunching of recording sessions was necessary to complete Bunny’s first one-year contract to make records for Victor. Something similar happened the next year, when the Berigan band made six acceptable masters on March 15.
Nice post, Mike. We hear a lot about Bunny’s high note range, but this shows just how much of a master in the basement range of the trumpet. My first exposure to “Downstream” was years ago with the Andy Kirk recording and Pha Terrell’s vocal. Great to hear the live recording as well. Sounds like they were really “on” that night!
Dave Brewer
Dave, thanks for your perceptive feedback. The live recording gives us a glimpse of what the Berigan band was like in front of audiences. Exciting is an appropriate adjective.