SALLY VENUTI

This page is dedicated to Joe Venuti’s first wife, Sally.

The following article comprises a profile of Joe Venuti created by Sally Venuti, which was likely submitted to The Metronome between January and February 1933. The absence of any mention of Eddie Lang's passing (March 26, 1933) indicates that the article, dated April 1933, was written before March of that year. This is the sole first-hand account we have of Joe Venuti, covering the years 1903-1933.

Mrs. Joe Venuti Spills

THE LOWDOWN ON JOE

She Ought To Know-She Married Him

The Metronome, April 1933

(The article is reprinted, word for word, as published with minor punctuation revisions.)

Sally (Sarah Israel) (6), born on March 14, 1906, in Hendersonville, NC, (7) was Joe Venuti's first wife. When asked about this marriage, Joe Venuti responded in his typical brief style, "We (Eddie & I) married a couple of chorus girls." In the last paragraph of the article, Sally Venuti mentioned, "I met Joe in California while engaged in picture work," which indicates that they met between June 1929 and March 1930 while the Paul Whiteman Orchestra was in and out of California during the script development for the King of Jazz film and finally for the filming itself. (20)

Sally played a crucial role in Venuti’s life from 1929 to 1947 by keeping a close watch on him as the violinist/bandleader was restless and sometimes reckless. Aside from being his spouse, she took on the challenging task of keeping him focused and organized, as he lacked business acumen. She also served as his business manager, handling the difficult job of managing an orchestra on and off the road. These responsibilities took a toll on their marriage, which ended in 1947.

The citations & notes at the conclusion of this piece help to clarify the dates, times, and locations mentioned in the article.

Mrs. Joe Venuti Spills  - THE LOWDOWN ON JOE - She Ought To Know-She Married Him

The Metronome, April 1933

I expect to be murdered for telling on Joe this way when he finds out. He’s so touchy about such things – does not give a hang about publicity, doesn’t even keep a scrapbook. He’s funny that way.

But the editor of “America’s greatest orchestra magazine” – their own confession, knowing that he could never get Joe to talk about himself, told me to write the low-down, and I, in a weak moment, consented - so, here goes. If the worst comes to the worst, my favorite flower is the gardenia.

I’ll have some fun anyway telling on Joe, for there is really something to tell. If you wrote up his story as fiction, they’d say when they read it – “Very nice, but it never could happen in real life.” Oh, couldn’t it! Well, this is where the facts are fancier than fiction. So gather around, you Venuti fans, and I’ll piece it out.

Here’s the first surprise. Now, if Joe’s story ran true to form, we would begin by saying his parents were dead set against him ever becoming a musician. We can imagine Joe’s dad snatching the fiddle away from his young hopeful and raising his voice to say, “My son, if I ever catch you playing that devilish fiddle again, I’ll break it over your head.”

How They Got Their Start

Don’t laugh, that’s the way most of our present ace men got their start – by invoking the wrath of the old gent and sneaking out of sight to do their practicing., if any. Parents in those days had the fixed idea that musicians were plain bums with long hair, halitosis, and heebeegeebees. In some instances, they were right, but parents were certainly set against having their sons disgrace the family by becoming pipers.

Well, that’s not Joe’s story at all. His family – eight of them, count ‘em (2) – were all determined to make something out of Joe and a fiddle at that. Mom Venuti dreamed about it by day and prayed for it by night; Pop likewise, and the older brother made it the one object of his life. When Joe was old enough to hold a fiddle, they used to lock him in a room for hours and listen outside to make sure that he practiced. Not that this was severe punishment to Joe anyway since he loved a fiddle from the day he spotted one and toddled up to take it in his hands. Sometimes when no sounds would come out of the room in which Joe was locked, someone would go in suspecting him to be stalling. They usually found him on his knees, praying to become a great violinist. Now I ask you, is that what you might expect of a youngster praying to become a great fiddle player when he might be praying to become Babe Ruth?

When Joe was about six he was playing baseball with some of his school friends. He had just come to bat – the supreme moment for any youngster. All of a sudden, he dropped his bat and ran all the way home, to the great astonishment of his schoolmates. But there was a reason. A tune had popped into Joe's head, and he wanted to play it on his fiddle before he forgot it.

Here’s another strange thing. If Joe inherited any musical talent, he must have inherited it out of thin air. Certainly not from the family, none of whom knew one note from another. Strange things do happen in this world. All that we know is that Joe’s family en masse were determined to make a musician out of him. And – well, they did.

The family lived in Philadelphia at the time, and Joe’s first and only teacher was a white-haired old codger who showed him how to control the flying fingers of his left hand. They bounced all the fingerboard. Joe made such fast progress it kept the old timer on the jump to keep up. (3) And Joe had a funny way of playing his pieces from the very first, a way all his own.

The Teacher’s Pet

Joe was the teacher’s pet in school because they all liked to hear him play. He got away with murder on this account. All he would need do to square himself of any mischief was take out the fiddle, tuck it under his chin and look innocent. How could anybody act like the devil and play like an angel? How could they?

In high school he was leader of the band and one of his first jobs at real money was playing in a local picture palace. Then while still in high, he went to Hot Spring(s), VA. (4), with a sure enough concert band and that started things off. The following summer, he was playing in a café in Atlantic City for fifty dollars a week. And that just about made things perfect. Joe simply adores bathing. Every day found him on the beach getting brown as a Malay Indian, nights found him on the job. (5).

Then Paul Whiteman spotted him and offered him $185 a week—some jump from fifty—to join his outfit at the Palais Royal in New York. Joe, of course, took the offer, packed his few belongings, and made for the great Deception. (5)

At the end of just two weeks, Joe packed up again and said, “So long, Paul.”

“Where are you going,” said the then-rotund Paul, amazement spreading over his features.

“Back to the beach,” replied the departing fiddler.

“Now, Joe,” said Paul confidentially, putting a hand on his shoulder, “if it’s a question of money, I can fix that,” Paul was always magnanimous.

“No, it’s not that. I like it better on the boardwalk.”

“Why you unmitigated idiot,” stormed the maestro, but the hot fiddler was already on his way out. (5)

Now that’s Joe all over. He missed his bathing and would rather be where he could have it and fifty a week than several hundred a week in New York.

Money means very little to Joe. If he were out of coins, he could have cleaned up more than once. But he's just not money-minded.

Once, Roger Wolfe Kahn threw a party at his father's gorgeous estate on Long Island. Joe was much impressed, but when he came back he said, “It’s nice, but it’s not me.” Joe believes in spending his money and enjoying life while the enjoying is good. (8)

Joe Venuti ca. January-February 1933.

The Blue Four

From Atlantic City, Joe jumped from one outfit to another. One of the first of them was the Blue Four, consisting of Jimmy Dorsey, Frankie Signorelli, Joe, and Eddy (sic) Lang. (9) That started his long association with Eddy (sic) Lang. (10)

When Gene (sic) Goldkette heard of Joe, he sent for him to come to Detroit and direct a band. He stayed out there a year and a half, the longest he had been away from home. (11) Then his family got worried enough, so his brother drove out to Detroit and brought him back to the fold. (12)

Later, in New York, he made scads of records for OKeh, Brunswick, and Victor, writing his own solos. Then he played with Roger Wolfe Kahn (13) and was assistant to Don Voorhees in Rain Or Shine, (14) and again with Paul Whiteman’s band for the filming of King of Jazz. (15)

Since then, he has been freelancing in vaudeville and working on most of the big hours on NBC and Columbia.

If Joe had never touched a violin, he would no doubt have been a great comedian. He just has a natural flare for the ridiculous. One of his chief d’oeuvres in this respect is to burlesque the singing of the Prologue from Pagliacci. A vaudeville booker heard him do this once and offered to book him as a comedian. But his crazy antics are mostly ad-lib. One of his pets is breaking fiddles. He will break up his own instrument on any bet of five dollars or over. Once, he broke a fiddle over Lennie (sic) Hayton’s head, at another time, he kicked one over a cliff in California. That’s why he seldom plays a really valuable instrument. He has one, but his mother keeps it under lock and key. (16)

Being infested with film folk, Hollywood is used to queer antics. But to Paul Whiteman’s outfit went the prize for the craziest bunch of actors to visit the film colony. Some of the boys rented a house where they would through vases at each other and break up furniture to put in the fireplace. Their bill for damages one month was $289. Joe liked especially to walk his horse into the house. (17)

His Flare For Fun

I imagine it was Joe’s flare for fun that it turned him into a hot fiddler, otherwise, he would probably have been another Kriesler (sic) or Elman. But from the first, he liked to jazz ‘em up on the fiddle. When only 12, he was playing with a hot band in Philadelphia. (18) Then, later, when playing with a hot band at Atlantic City, he naturally began playing hot. The leader called him, told him he was “crazy” (he was), and refused to let him play that way with his band. (5) He didn’t know what a good bet he was missing. Although Joe can play as straight as any and could hold down a berth in the Philharmonic, his forte is undoubtedly hot stuff. It crops out in the names he gives his pieces as Kicking (sic) the Cat, Doing (sic) Things, Going (sic) Places, etc. Joe gets many letters from violinists wanting to know how to play hot. He can’t give them much help on this subject since he does it naturally.

Joe is like a child in many respects and has to be humored. Can’t remember where he put anything. One minute everything is rosy, another minute he is down in the dumps.

He practices hours a day, and his favorite place is the bathroom—he claims the acoustics are better there. He begins to warm up by playing scales very fast. Then, he might take up a Paganini variation.

Another reason he likes the bathroom for practice is that he can look into the mirror. Not that he’s vain. On the contrary, just the reverse. But he likes to observe his finger movements.

To Smile More

Then again, some well-meaning friends have been telling him he ought to smile more, that all the maestros flash a row of ivories that reach back to the molars and even the adenoids. Joe tried to emulate this dentine display before his mirror, but it was no use. “I can’t smile,” he said, “when there is nothing to smile at.” Music is serious business to him, and so he stays serious. He is incidentally one of the few leaders who stands before the man and actually plays his fiddle, directing with the bow.

Joe is 29 years old, and his pet ambition is to tour the world with his own band. He would be well received, no doubt, especially in Europe, where his records have caught the popular fancy.

I met Joe in California while engaged in picture work. He disapproved of this activity from the start, having the old-fashioned idea that a woman’s place is in the three rooms and bath. I found out anyway after I married him that it was a real job just to look after him. And for fun and excitement, it beat any other job I ever had.

CITATIONS & NOTES

1.     Conversations with Joe Venuti, Mike Peters, 1974-1978.

2.     Giacomo-father (b. 1864, Italy), Rosa-mother (b. 1864, Italy), Carmelo-brother (b. 1889, Italy), Fradio-brother (b. 1891, Italy), Concetta-sister (b. 1893, Italy), Andrew-brother (b. 1895, Italy), Giovannina-sister (b. 1900, Philadelphia), Joseph (b. 1903, Philadelphia). Source: Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910-Population (Enrico Borsetti).

3.     There is conflicting information regarding Joe Venuti’s formal studies ca. 1915. See two sources below.

  • Giuseppe Venuti studies violin under Professor Thaddeus Rich, Stringing The Blues, Richard DuPage, Columbia Records, 1962.

  • Studies violin with Michel Sciapiro, Philadelphia Orchestra, Viva Venuti!, Norman P. Gentieu, IAJRC Journal, April 1979, Vol. 12, No. 2.

4.     ca. 1918, age 15 or ca. 1919, age 16. Unconfirmed.

5.     In 1919, Joe (age 16 & 5 months) joined Bert Estlow’s band at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Atlantic City (New Jersey). Stringing The Blues, Richard DuPage, Columbia Records, 1962. SEE TIMELINE BELOW

6.     April 6, 1938, Philadelphia Newspaper TBD

7.     November 1, 1934, SS Manhattan Passenger List.

8.     August 15/16, 1925, The Kahns of Fifth Avenue, Iain Cameron Williams, i will publishing, 2022.

9.     The Blue Four recording sessions with Jimmy Dorsey & Frank Signorelli were on November 12, 1930, & June 10, 1931.

10.  The Venuti & Lang musical partnership started ca. 1917, Stringing The Blues, Richard DuPage, Columbia Records, 1962.

11.  March 1924-ca. August 1925: Joe Venuti joins the Jean Goldkette Orchestra in Detroit, Michigan as violinist-leader for various (Goldkette) units for about a year and a half, Stringing The Blues, Richard DuPage, Columbia Records, 1962.

12.  Unconfirmed.

13.  Joe Venuti joins the Roger Wolfe Kahn Organization, Billboard, September 19, 1925.

14.  Rain or Shine, George M. Cohan's Theatre, New York, NY, February 9-December 15, 1928, ibdb.com.

15.  Between June 1929 and March 1930, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra was in and out of California during the script development for the King of Jazz film and finally for the filming itself.

16.  Unconfirmed.

17.  A variety of antics perpetrated by Joe Venuti are recalled in Tram: The Frank Trumbauer Story, Phillip R. Evans & Larry F. Kiner, Studies in Jazz No. 18, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers & The Scarecrow Press, 1994 & BIX, The Leon Bix Beiderbecke Story, Phillip R. Evans and Linda K. Evans, Prelike Press, 1998.

18.  Joe Venuti, age 15, 1917-1918: Chick Graneses Quartet w/Joe Venuti & Eddie Lang, Shott’s Café, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Stringing The Blues, Richard DuPage, Columbia Records, 1962.

19.  Paul Whiteman, Pioneer In American Music, Volume 1, 1890-1930, Don Rayno, Studies in Jazz, No. 43, The Scarecrow Press, 2003.

20.  According to Kitty Lang, by the time she arrived in California after the Whiteman troop was in California in June 1929, Sally was already Joe Venuti’s wife. Still A Ziegfeld Girl, Memoirs of a Showgirl, An Autobiography, Kitty (Lang) Good, Writers Guild Of America 136497.