Joe Venuti - Fabulous Joe Venuti (CD)

All Music Guide

Whether (according to his own personal mythos) violinist Giuseppe ‘Joe' Venuti was born on a boat packed with Italian immigrants in 1903, or if like his friend Salvatore Massaro (better known as early jazz guitar virtuoso Eddie Lang) he was birthed and bred in South Philly, what's certain is that forty years after Lang's tragic death following a botched tonsillectomy, a septuagenarian Venuti traveled to his ancestral homeland and made records with two Italian jazz groups led by guitarist Lino Patruno. Recorded in Milan on May 3 1971 and September 13 and 14 1974, and originally released on two Vanguard LPs (Joe Venuti in Milan and Jazz Violin) the material was reissued in one package in 1995. Surrounded by capable brass, reed and rhythm players, the venerable Venuti whipped up fourteen old time jazz standards and a medley of themes by George Gershwin. These recordings compliment the elderly fiddler's excellent comeback recordings for the Chiaroscuro, Concord and Flying Fish labels.

- arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide