Joe Venuti Archives - Paul – and some of that Jazz

From the Record Shelves #217 – The Wild Dog – A big department store in the center of town was closing down at the beginning of the 1990s. It was my favorite place to buy records, so it was sad. Now they had made up a plan to get rid of their stock; they lowered the prices (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #204 – Dinah – The Jean Goldkette Orchestra is known mostly for the classic recordings it made when Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer were featured jazz soloists in 1926-27. How did the band sound prior to that? In January -26 (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #148 – Shivery Stomp. On May 19, 1929, The Orchestra played at Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and a few days later they started on their trip to California to shoot the film King of Jazz by appearing in Philadelphia (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #126 – Hey! Young Fella!. I bought this LP in 1967. I think it was cheap. But the music on it is anything but that. It’s rich and almost every track is a masterpiece. In February 1933 violinist Joe Venuti brought his fellow musicians (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #125 – Everything I Have Is Yours. This well produced CD contains vocals by 18 crooners, some of them like Gene Austin worthy of more remembrance today. The angle of the album is to present music from the art deco era, and we get (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #112 – My Baby Came Home. It’s not a generally agreed upon judgement, but to my ears and taste Red McKenzie had a wonderful voice and his expression of sentiments is fine with me. On this compilation of singers from the jazz age (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #107 – I Like What You Like. Even if her recording career only lasted eight years there is enough material with Annette Hanshaw to fill a pile of LP records. But it’s hard to think that any of them would be better than this one (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #101 – Say ’Yes’ Today. Roger Wolfe loved music and played several instruments, and he was also the son of millionaire Otto Kahn, so with the aid of his father he could put together a dance band that was sometimes (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #84 – Five Pennies. On the record label of this Brunswick 78 rpm we can read the lineup of the group, Red Nichols and his Five Pennies and our ears can easily confirm it. The timpani of Vic Berton starts off this rather peaceful performance (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #83 – Really Blue. On the LP we find a couple of classic Venuti-Lang recordings in two takes each which is good for comparison. Their routines are well worked out with virtuoso playing and the capacity to fill three minutes (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #78 – Honolulu Blues. This performance is a bit crazy or maybe one should say experimental. Red Nichols and his Five Pennies keeps it down to six musicians on this date in September 1931. Vic Berton’s use of his timpani is (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #35 – Midnight Call Blues. Eddie Lang became one of the most lamented heroes in jazz history when he never woke up after a routine tonsillectomy in 1933. But before that he had made a great impact as a true pioneer of guitar playing which gave the instrument a new role (…) read more and listenread more and listen