Did Joe Venuti Record with
Paul Whiteman in 1925?
On several occasions, Joe Venuti asserted that he (and Eddie Lang) worked for Paul Whiteman as early as 1922. Albert Haim & Nick Dellow wrote an article in the December 2014 issue of the IAJRC Journal that addresses Venuti’s claim based on recording sessions the violinist took part in 1925 with Whiteman. Following that, you will find a piece that offers circumstances that could place Venuti with Paul Whiteman as far back as 1922.
Did Joe Venuti Record with Paul Whiteman in 1925?
by Albert Haim and Nick Dellow.
IAJRC Journal, Vol. 47, iss. 4, December 2014.
Introduction.
By the end of the 1920s, Joe Venuti had reached the pinnacle of success as a jazz artist, both in his own right as a superb violinist but also in partnership with his long-time musical associate, jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (née Salvatore Massaro). Together, Venuti and Lang more or less single-handedly established the roles for their respective instruments in 1920s and 1930s jazz and dance music, whether as solo instruments or in an accompanying role.
The accolades that came their way garnered respect throughout the dance band and jazz world, emphasized by the fact that from May 1929 to May 1930, they were hired by Paul Whiteman to be a feature attraction within his large dance orchestra.
By 1929, Paul Whiteman had reached his crowning achievement as the "King of Jazz" with the making of the movie of the same name. No expense was spared in obtaining the services of Paul Whiteman and his musicians for their Hollywood debut. One part of the movie was specifically designed to showcase Whiteman's star instrumentalists, and thus Venuti and Lang appear in a short segment playing their composition Wild Cat.
What is not generally so well known is that Joe Venuti has an earlier association with Paul Whiteman. In 1925, Venuti recorded in a freelance capacity with Busse’s Buzzards, a small band directed by Henry Busse, the first trumpeter of Paul Whiteman's Orchestra. Busse’s Buzzards were, in effect, a "band within a band" since all its members – with the exception of Venuti – were members of the main Whiteman band. The outfit followed on from Whiteman's earlier band-within-a-band, the Virginians, led by saxophonist Ross Gorman. (It is Paul Specht though who must take the credit for the first of these satellite bands – the famous Georgians, directed by trumpeter Frank Guarente.)
Busse's Buzzards had four recording sessions for Victor: July 9, August 27, September 14 and December 28, 1925. No violinists were present at the first and last sessions. Rust [1] and Rayno [2] list Venuti as violinist in the Buzzards recording sessions of August 27 and September 14, 1925.
Busse’s Buzzards Sessions With Joe Venuti
According to Victor’s ledgers, all four takes of Red Hot Henry Brown and all four takes of Horn Tootin’ Fool cut on August 27 were destroyed. Four takes of Red Hot Henry Brown were cut on September 14. Take 6 was destroyed. Takes 7 and 8 were held for 30 days and unissued. Take 5 was mastered (33351-5) and issued on Victor 19782-A.
As can be seen by the photograph of the label reproduced here, Busse’s Buzzards are described as “A Paul Whiteman Orchestra.” [3] Four takes of Milenberg Joys were cut on September 14. Takes 1 and 3 were destroyed. Take 4 was held for 30 days, unissued. Take 2 was issued as Victor 19782-B. Although a violin is listed in the instrumentation for Milenberg Joys in the Victor ledgers, a violin is not audible. As a consequence, Rayno [2] does not list Venuti among the musicians in the recording of Milenberg Joys.
Red Hot Henry Brown is a composition by Fred Rose.
It was a popular tune in 1925, recorded by about a dozen bands, among them Fletcher Henderson, the California Ramblers, Ray Miller and the Charleston Chasers.
As with the Virginians before them, Busse’s Buzzards tend to play numbers that emphasize the hotter elements of the dance music of the time. Red Hot Henry Brown consists mostly of solos: 6+4+3 bars by Charles Strickfaden, tenor sax; 19 bars by Joe Venuti, violin; 20 bars by Henry Busse, trumpet; 15 bars by Eddie Sharpe, bass clarinet; 12 bars by Wilbur Hall, trombone. Venuti’s solo is played using a novel bowing technique that he developed and which he often employed on recordings. It reflected his idiosyncratic jazz style as well as his astonishing technical abilities as a musician. It involves wrapping the bow hair over all four strings while holding the stick below the body of the violin. Using this method, Venuti was able to play all four violin strings simultaneously, hence the name of this technique "four-string violin.” It allows chords to be played in a way that is impossible using the bow in the conventional way.
As far as the authors can ascertain, Red Hot Henry Brown is the first example of a recorded "four-string" violin solo. It is also the first recording Venuti made after he left the Jean Goldkette orchestra in late 1924 or early 1925, moving from Detroit to New York in the process.
Joe Venuti demonstrates his "four-string" technique, image courtesy Hank O’Neal.
Did Joe Venuti Record with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra in 1925?
The authors examined several Whiteman recordings from the period August 1 to September 30,1925. We chose this period because it covers the dates of Venuti’s recording sessions with Busse’s Buzzards up to the point in time when Venuti joined Roger Wolfe Kahn's orchestra, which was in residence at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. Before joining Roger Wolfe Kahn in October 1925, it is thought that Venuti was playing in the pit bands in various Broadway musicals, though as yet the authors have been unable to identify specific shows. Venuti would have been available for freelance recording work too.
The violinists in Whiteman’s orchestra at this time were Kurt Dieterle, Mario Perry and James McKillop. Dieterle, the concert master, was away from Aug 16 to Aug 31, 1925. It must be pointed out that though they were virtuoso performers, Dieterle and Perry were not jazz artists and therefore did not play hot solos with the Whiteman Orchestra. Thus, they can be ruled out of the discussion here. Little is known about James McKillop, but as far as we are aware he was another straight violinist. Aural evidence – not to mention logical reasoning given the circumstances – leads us to conclude that it would be highly unlikely that McKillop is responsible for the jazz violin in the recordings under consideration here. The fact that there are no hot violin solos in Whiteman records in the period after Venuti joined Roger Wolfe Kahn (October 1925) and before hot violinist Matty Malneck was subsequently hired by Whiteman (February 1926), though James McKillop was still in the band, reinforces our assertion that McKillop was not a jazz violinist.
There are two Paul Whiteman recordings made during the period under examination where a hot violin is heard, and in each case it is in a style one immediately associates with Joe Venuti:
The Rhythm Rag. Four takes cut on Aug 20, 1925, all destroyed. Four additional takes cut on September 1, 1925. Takes 5, 6 and 8 were destroyed. Take 7 was mastered and released on Victor 19773. There is a short violin break early in the recording that is played in a typical Venuti style, with the use of more than one string to achieve a hot chord sound (although this particular break is not played using the "four-string" technique). According to Rayno, Kurt Dieterle and James McKillop are the violinists in the recording.
Ida-I Do. Two takes cut on September 4, 1925, both destroyed. Six additional takes cut on September 15, 1925, the day after Busse’s Buzzards recorded Red Hot Henry Brown. Takes 3-6 were destroyed; take 7 was held for 30 days, unissued; take 7 was mastered and released on Victor 19783. There is a hot "four-string" violin break in the introduction and a 9+4 bar, "four-string" violin solo. According to Rayno, Kurt Dieterle and James McKillop are the violinists in the recording. Rayno further states: “Especially intriguing is the jazzy violin. The violinist is not identified (the parts in the [Ferde Grofe] arrangement are not marked with names); one guess is James McKillop, who had recently joined the band. Joe Venuti, who played on the Busse’s Buzzards session the previous day, is also a possibility."
We propose that Joe Venuti was present in the September 1 and 15 Whiteman sessions, and that he is responsible for the breaks/solos in the recordings of The Rhythm Rag and Ida-I Do. The aural evidence is quite persuasive: the "four string" work heard in Ida- I Do is uncannily similar to Joe Venuti’s "four-string" playing heard in other recordings. Joe Venuti was the originator of the "four-string" chord technique and, at the time of the recordings under consideration, very likely its only practitioner. Moreover, the break in The Rhythm Rag is virtually identical to a phrase used by Venuti in his recording of Stringing The Blues" (take 11) from his first session with Eddie Lang in 1926.
NOTE: This was actually their third session together.
It is worth considering the possible reasons why Joe Venuti, who was not a full member of the Whiteman band at the time, was specifically engaged for these recording sessions. It is clear that Whiteman was becoming increasingly interested in employing the services of jazz musicians within his growing ranks, reflecting the move in this direction in dance music more generally. Thus, Whiteman hired hot violinist Matty Malneck in February 1926, relatively soon after the Whiteman and Busse’s Buzzards recordings discussed here were made. As the regular violinists in the Whiteman band (Dieterle, Perry and McKillop) were not hot men and as Malneck had not yet joined Whiteman’s orchestra at the time of these recordings, it was necessary for Busse and Whiteman to find a hot violinist doing free-lance work. Who better than Joe Venuti, the father of jazz violin.
Postscript
Within a few years of these recordings being waxed, Joe Venuti would be propelled into the limelight through his seminal recordings with Eddie Lang for OKeh. As a consequence, several violinists began imitating Venuti's "four-string" style, though few mastered it. One musician who did successfully play in the Venuti style on "four-string" violin was Georgie Stoll. He demonstrated the technique in a 1928 Vitaphone movie featuring Walt Roesner and his Capitolians playing "I'm More Than Satisfied." (The movie is currently available on YouTube). Another early imitator was, perhaps surprisingly, to be found on the other side of the Atlantic. British violinist Eric Siday was playing remarkably advanced hot "four-string" chord work as early as 1927, on recordings by Ray Starita's Piccadilly Revels Band on British Columbia.
SOURCES
[1] Jazz and Ragtime Records, (1897-1942) by Brian Rust, Malcolm Shaw, editor, Mainspring Press, Denver, Colorado, 2002.
[2] Paul Whiteman, Pioneer in American Music, Volume I: 1890-1930, Studies in Jazz, No. 43 by Don Rayno, The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford, 2003.
[3] In contrast, the Virginians are described in the record labels as “Under the Direction of Ross Gorman.”
Was Joe Venuti with Paul Whiteman in 1922?
"We started with Whiteman in 1922." (Joe Venuti) (1)
"I played with Paul Whiteman six years. Like in 1922 Paul paid me $150 a week. 1923 he gave me $300 a week. 1924 I was making $600 a week." (Joe Venuti) (1)
Let's not dismiss Venuti's comments out of hand. Allan Sutton's superb research (2) highlights some interesting details regarding the music business and band bookings in the first half of the twenties.
In 1921, Paul Whiteman established his orchestra booking agency, which eventually numbered over ten ensembles that included Zez Confrey, Joe Raymond, Charles Dornberger, and Henry Busse. Busse's Whiteman contingency was Busse's Buzzards, a small, short-lived unit from the main Whiteman orchestra. By 1923, Whiteman's booking agency had expanded to the point that it was managing orchestras across the nation. In early 1924, the name was changed to United Orchestras, Inc.
Having spent a year and a half in Detroit leading orchestras for Jean Goldkette's booking agency, Joe Venuti's first recording session upon returning to the East Coast in August 1925 was with Busse's Buzzards. Considering the violinist's reputation as a successful band & orchestra leader, playing club dates with Busse's Buzzards in the fall of 1925 and with any number of Whiteman units as early as 1922 is plausible.
Note: Haim & Dellow mention, "It is worth considering the possible reasons why Joe Venuti, who was not a full member of the Whiteman band at the time, was specifically engaged for these recording sessions." Yes, Venuti was specifically engaged for these recording sessions. However, let's also consider that the violinist was a full-time member of Whiteman's booking agency troupe, leading bands under the Whiteman banner on club and hotel dates.
SOURCE
Joe Venuti Interview, conducted by William Moyer for National Public Radio, Jazz String Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1, January-March 1983.
American Dance Orchestras, Paul Whiteman, Inc. - A Preliminary Survey of the Whiteman Agency Dance Orchestras, Allan Sutton.