Being forever associated with guitarist Eddie Lang isn’t a bad lot to get stuck with. As Lang and Joe Venuti recorded countless duets during the formative years of jazz, when it was still an occult, vagabond scene with only a modicum of respect coming from the expanses of the American populace, the pair can easily be thought of as the immediate antecedent of Django Rheinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. During the time that Lang and Venuti performed together, the recorded life of music wasn’t too old, deep or spread about too well. But as they continued to cut sides and perform with various dance bands or big band jazz groups, the pair’s ability to play off of one another served to introduce the idea of improvising into any composed piece of music. Read more
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