Berigan on the trumpet: Not just okay, more like “Oh, Kaye!”
By CP Christopher Peppas
There is inevitably going to be a lot of pressure brought to bear when you not only share a name, but also the instrument of someone who achieved international fame.
It’s the kind of pressure that can 
make one crack, or, if applied properly to coal, a diamond will be produced. In the case of Kaye Berigan, it is most certainly the latter.
Kaye’s uncle, Roland Bernard “Bunny” Berigan, was like a comet that flashed across the jazz universe at the height of the Big Band Era.
Bunny was born in Hilbert, WI, and lived just thirty-four years. But he had monster hits to his credit, the biggest of which is “I Can’t Get Started.” Add to that “Jazz Me Blues,” “The Prisoner’s Song” and “Big Boy Blue” among many others.
For this he earned the moniker “Mr. Trumpet” at a time when Louie Armstrong, Benny Carter and Harry James were also tooting their own horns.
“My father left us at (age) four,” Kaye said in a recent interview. “It (talk about Bunny) is all we ever heard growing up. Somewhere in my pea brain, I thought if I just played the trumpet, maybe Dad would pay attention to me.”
That plan may not have worked, but “then I fell in love with music in high school and continued in college where I hooked up with a lot of players,” Kaye said.
“The very first stage I was on was with the legendary jazz pianist and Milwaukee native, Ziggy Millonzi,” Kaye said. That must’ve been heady stuff for a lad even with his last name.
Berigan got involved in various jams and wound up at The Lounge on Walnut Street where “I would play all week. I would look at them put their horns down and sit down and just listen.”
And, if you want to be proficient at anything (the trumpet is no exception) “it takes a lot of hard work, practice and a lot of luck.”
Kaye was influenced by some of the usual suspects like Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Bill Evans and more. And he gleaned a good deal of his musical acumen by listening to musicians who played something other than a trumpet.
In 2000, he co-founded what is now known as The Superband, a Big Band with varying configurations that has performed with seventeen players (or more), playing all the great jazz arrangements from the various decades.
For several years, Kaye was tapped as a judge for the Jazz Unlimited Scholarship auditions, the main mission of the organization.
And Kaye drew upon his twenty-nine year career as a music teacher in the Milwaukee Public Schools system, including a long time at John Marshall High School. He taught trumpet lessons on Saturday mornings until around noon and would then prepare to play a gig around town at night.
Kaye also performed on countless albums and CDs in the 1980s and 90s.
Earlier this year, Berigan posted on Facebook that he was going to stop playing, sell his instruments and just walk away. “I think I’m nearing the end of the trail,” Kaye said. “There are no gigs anymore and the (jazz) music isn’t as popular.”
But that did not sit well at all with his friends and fellow musicians who immediately flooded his wall with calls to sit in and play, to not give up and, by all means hang on to his instruments.
It was an absolute clarion call which buoyed Berigan and his “retirement” lasted all of thirty-six hours. Kaye may have aged, but his playing is as crisp and clear as ever. And when he sits in, he makes all the players around him sound better.
It’s hard to follow in the footsteps of a legend, especially one with whom you share a good amount of DNA. But Kaye has been able to do just that. One would think that his uncle is nodding in agreement from Heaven’s horn section.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CP Christopher Peppas is a Journalist, Jazz Vocalist and Conga Player in the Greater Milwaukee Area and Correspondent at Large for the Jazz Unlimited Newsletter and Content Manager/Chief Contributor to CreativProse, Ltd. (sic), Social Media, Brand Management.
