Yesterday I posted a recording of Bunny Berigan singing (as well as trumpeting) ‘My Baby Says It’s So’, a lovely 1930s Warren/Dubin ditty. Berigan’s singing is so unusual and super-hip that I began to dig into his discography to find more than just the famous ‘I Can’t Get Started’ hit record. There are actually two versions of that–the 1938 hit and a 1936 small group version which is pleasantly laid back, though Berigan does sound quite drunk during his vocal. Alas, his drunkeness led to his downfall, as his management of his own band faltered and his health declined, leading to his too early death at age 33 in 1943. What a waste! Anyway, here’s a grooving little novelty item from the mid-thirties called ‘Mama I Wanna Make Rhythm’, which belongs to a mini-genre that was popular at the time, probably best thought of as ‘straightlace vs. hepcat’. Songs like “Swing It Professor’ and ‘He Ain’t Got Rhythm’ all picked up on the suddenly fashionable notion of ‘swing’ and the need for the squarest of squares to cut loose and master its groove. Bunny’s version is above. Below is Cab Calloway’s which is from an unidentified movie (I could probably figure out what it is but it’s lunchtime and I’m starving) and has its own mad Cab energy to it. Below are the lyrics–Berigan skips the verse but Calloway does it, complete with a strange attempt at a Yiddish sounding accent. In the Berigan version the clever and intricately rhymed bridge is mostly inaudible due to what sounds to me like a case of under-rehearsal. And here’s Wikipedia’s very good entry on Bunny.

Yasha was a prodigy, since he was a kid of three
He could play a rhapsody as good as they come
But as strange as it may be, Yasha hated melody
He had a yen for tympani, he longed to play a drum
When his Mother made him practice on the fiddle every day
He’d stop right in the middle and he’d say…

Mama, I wanna make rhythm
Don’t wanta make music
Just wanna go zoozi-zah-zah-zoozi
Ooh-cah-dee-doodle-oodle-aah-doo

Mama, I wanna get hotcha
I wanta make boombah
I wanna go gah-gah
Za-rah-kah, zat-zow, ooh-dee-lah

I’ve got no desire to carry a Stradivarius, but
There’s no limit of primitive tom-tom in my tum-tum

Mama, I wanna make rhythm
Don’t wanta make music
Just wanna go wookee-ah-kay-a-kaya-kaya
Yag-a-yag-a-yag-a-yag