Joe Venuti (1903 to 1978) was the first great jazz violinist. With his childhood friend, guitarist Eddie Lang, he made the recordings in the late 1920s that proved a violin could swing. He recorded for more than 50 years, from Jean Goldkette’s dance band in 1924 to duets with pianist Earl Hines in 1976. The National Fiddler Hall of Fame inducted him in 2010.
Why Venuti matters
Before Venuti, the violin in a dance band played written parts. Venuti improvised hot choruses over the rhythm section, and record companies hired him and Lang to add 12 or 24 bars of that to otherwise stock arrangements. Those short duets taught a generation of fiddlers what a swing solo could sound like. Western swing players like Cecil Brower learned from his records, and through them the jazz violin vocabulary reached the Texas dance halls where Bob Wills and Johnny Gimble worked. When a contest fiddler plays a swing tune of choice, some of that phrasing goes back to Venuti.
Life and career
Venuti told so many different stories about his birth that biographers still argue about it. Official records give September 16, 1903, in Philadelphia. He trained as a classical violinist from childhood and studied solfeggio with his grandfather. In the James Campbell School Orchestra he sat beside another young violinist, Salvatore Massaro, who later changed his name to Eddie Lang and switched to guitar.
He turned professional in 1924, when he joined Jean Goldkette’s band in Detroit and made his first records with the Goldkette orchestra. By 1925 he was in New York, where he and Lang formed a partnership that ran until Lang’s death in 1933. They played in Roger Wolfe Kahn’s dance orchestras and in Broadway pit bands, and in 1926 they began recording as a duet for OKeh. Their Blue Four sides with players like Adrian Rollini are counted among the milestone jazz recordings of the decade. From 1926 to 1928 the pair recorded with Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, and Red Nichols.
Venuti joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1929 and appeared with it in the 1930 film King of Jazz, playing Wild Cat with Lang. On October 22, 1931, he led an all-star session with Lang, Benny Goodman, and Jack Teagarden that many count as the high point of his career. After Lang died in 1933, Venuti toured Europe, then led a big band from 1935 until it folded in 1943.
He moved to California in 1944 as an MGM studio musician and appeared on Bing Crosby’s radio show. The 1950s and early 1960s were lean years, and alcoholism kept him off the stage for stretches. He played with Jack Statham’s groups at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas from 1961 to 1965. His comeback began in 1967 at Dick Gibson’s Colorado Jazz Party, where he returned every year until his death. He played the Newport Jazz Festival in 1968 and the London Jazz Expo in 1969.
In the 1970s he recorded three albums with saxophonist Zoot Sims, the duet album Hot Sonatas with Earl Hines in 1976, and a record with country-jazz players Jethro Burns, Curly Chalker, and Eldon Shamblin. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1970 but kept touring. He died in Seattle on August 14, 1978.
Playing style
Venuti played hot. His solos ran on driving eighth and sixteenth notes, with rhythmic patterns that pushed the beat rather than floating over it. He favored fast tempos that showed off his classical technique, and he used the whole fingerboard, with runs from the low G string up past where most fiddlers stop. He also used left-hand pizzicato and the slides common in blues and country fiddling.
His most famous trick was the four-string chord. He unscrewed the end of his bow, wrapped the hair around all four strings, and re-tightened it so he could bow chords across the whole instrument. The sound was wild and percussive, and nothing else in 1920s jazz sounded like it. Because horns drowned out an unamplified violin, he did most of his best work in small groups, where the violin could lead.
He put his approach on paper in Violin Rhythm, a School of Modern Rhythmic Violin Playing, published in 1937.
Influences and legacy
Venuti’s method was classical training turned loose on jazz. His partner Eddie Lang shaped everything he recorded before 1933. Together they influenced Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt in France, and the records reached western swing fiddlers in Texas through Cecil Brower and others. Fiddlers in the Nashville swing tradition, from Johnny Gimble to the Time Jumpers, still play in a language he helped write.
The National Fiddler Hall of Fame inducted him in 2010 alongside Buddy Spicher and Rufus Thibodeaux. He is one of the few jazz players on that roll, beside Stéphane Grappelli and Claude “Fiddler” Williams.
Signature tunes and songs
Wild Cat Stringing the Blues Doin’ Things Cheese and Crackers Beatin’ the Dog Black and Blue Bottom Satan’s Holiday.
Essential recordings
Stringing the Blues, Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti (Columbia, 1963 compilation of the 1920s sides) Joe & Zoot, Joe Venuti and Zoot Sims (Chiaroscuro, 1974) Hot Sonatas, Joe Venuti and Earl Hines (Chiaroscuro, 1976) The Classic Columbia and OKeh Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Sessions (Mosaic, 2002)
Awards and honors
National Fiddler Hall of Fame (2010)
Watch and listen
Venuti and Eddie Lang play Wild Cat with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in the 1930 film King of Jazz. Watch the bow arm on the fast passages and the four-string chords.
Stringing the Blues, an early Venuti and Lang duet from 1926. Listen to how the violin and guitar trade the lead.
What to learn from Venuti
Learn the melody of Wild Cat from the 1930 film clip and play it with a guitarist. It is a fast, simple tune that lives on rhythm, so it teaches swing eighth notes better than a slow ballad. The technique to steal is his rhythmic solo. Pick one chord tone and play it in a repeated syncopated pattern for two bars before you move on. Venuti built whole choruses that way, and the pattern, not the number of notes, is what makes a swing solo drive.
Sources
Joe Venuti, Wikipedia Joe Venuti, Discography of American Historical Recordings Joe Venuti (1903-1978), The Syncopated Times 2019 National Fiddler Hall of Fame inductions, Bluegrass Today Joe Venuti and Earl Hines, Hot Sonatas, Discogs Joe Venuti and Zoot Sims, Joe & Zoot, Discogs Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, Stringing the Blues, Discogs The Classic Columbia and OKeh Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Sessions, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more swing and jazz fiddlers. Venuti’s records shaped Stéphane Grappelli in Paris and the western swing of Bob Wills and Johnny Gimble in Texas. Claude “Fiddler” Williams carried the jazz violin line through Kansas City.