1937 Amelia Earhart | I Can't Get Started | Bunny Berigan

Music: 1936 I Can't Get Started | Bunny Berigan 1937
Video: 1932 transatlantic solo (Lockheed Vega 5B) | 1937 equatorial round the world attempt (Lockheed Electra 10-E Special), lost in the south Pacific with navigator Fred Noonan
"Amelia Earhart begins her career as aviatrix in the role of guest of the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest of London, formerly Miss Amy Phipps of Pittsburgh, wife of the Right Hon. Frederick Guest, member of Parliament, international polo player, and former British Air Minister. [In 1928] Mrs. Guest leases a tri-motored Fokker . . . in the hope of being the first of her sex to fly across the Atlantic. . . . [But she] is unable to fly herself and, fearful that the first woman might be Miss Mabel 'Mibs' Boll-a wealthy woman of questionable reputation known as the 'Diamond Queen'-she commissions George Putnam, who [had been Lindberg's publicist in 1927 and] has already made himself manager of the expedition, to search for a suitable substitute. She stipulates that the person be a woman and an American, and some speculate that she specifically suggests a resemblance to 'Lucky Lindy.' According to one biographer: 'She should be a pilot and well educated; preferably a college graduate. She should be physically attractive and have manners that would be acceptable to members of English society, who would undoubtedly welcome her on her arrival there.' Guest . . .intends that the first of her sex will be a 'lady' rather than a nightclub hostess, not an 'Ambassador without portfolio,' but of 'true womanhood.' Putnam assigns Hilton H. Railey, New York Times correspondent, to place a call to a Settlement worker at Denison House in Boston, a 'social worker who flies,' named Amelia Earhart. The 'right kind of girl' turns out to be 'a tall, slender, boyish-looking young woman,' in the words of Marion Perkins, Head Worker at Denison, where Earhart directed the evening school for foreign-born men and women. The resemblance to Lindbergh is unmistakable and Earhart acquires the nickname she will never be able to shed, 'Lady Lindy.'
. . . .
Once Earhart has established the position of the aviatrix as social worker, she further normalizes the female flier [in the early '30s] through clothes. She does this, on the one hand, by insisting on the history of clothes within aviation, that '"flying clothes"-fleece or fur-lined overalls of either leather or heavy cloth' are obsolete given the fact that planes now have closed cockpits; on the other hand, by comparing flying to driving a car, which also once needed special clothes but not anymore. The insistence on the suitability of ordinary clothes emphasizes both that women don't have to look like men, i.e., unsexed and thus unfashionable, nor do they need to belong to a particular social class, engaging in extra expense by buying special sporting clothes. But most important, by wearing street clothes a woman does not have to look like an 'aviatrix' and assume that identity in order to fly. . . .
Earhart's look becomes a composite of body shape, public image and 'queer' identity. She not only considers comfort and safety by wearing slacks and sensible shoes, but she also designs and models a line of dresses that integrates techniques from airplane manufacturing. . . . She agrees to follow Putnam's advice that she smile with her mouth closed in order to hide the space between her two front teeth. But most importantly she agrees to discard the hats that Putnam calls 'a public menace' and thereby reveal the tousled blond hair that becomes her signature, even though the curls are not natural. . . . While Earhart herself prefers the studio photographs that combine the flier's helmet with a string of pearls or a velvet evening gown decorated with both pearls and wings, she will be remembered for the leather jacket, silk blouse, and tie."
Anne Hermann, "On Amelia Earhart: The Aviatrix as American Dandy" (2000) (hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act208...)
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I Can’t Get Started
Music composed by Vernon Duke, lyric by Ira Gershwin.
Recorded by Roland Bernard “Bunny” Berigan (1908-1942) and His Orchestra for Victor on August 7, 1937 in New York.
"Numerous trumpeters have pointed out . . . that the contrasting low-register and high-register playing for which Bunny Berigan was renowned, and which is on full display in this classic performance, is something that was facilitated by his uncommon control of the trumpet’s lowest range. Berigan’s frequent vaults into the highest register of the trumpet were very often 'set-up,' both technically and musically, by his playing in the lowest range of the horn immediately before. This allowed his chops to receive maximum blood circulation so that when he went upstairs, his sound would remain full and rich, not pinched or piercing."
(swingandbeyond.com/2016/10/05...)