Playing Style
Venuti pioneered the violin as a solo instrument to the jazz world. He was famous for a fast, “hot” playing style characteristic of jazz soloists in the 1920s and the swing era. His solos have been described as incredibly rhythmic with patterns of duplets and running eighth and sixteenth notes. He favored a lively, fast tempo that showed off his superior technique. Venuti was a virtuosic player with a wide range of techniques including left hand pizzicato and runs spanning the length of the fingerboard. He also frequently implemented slides common in blues and country fiddle playing. Occasionally, he used a strange technique in which he unscrewed the end of his bow and wrapped the bow hair around the strings of the violin, lending the subsequent sound a “wild” tone. He was particularly notable in small ensemble jazz, since the force of the horns in big band jazz was sufficient to drown out the violin, prior to the invention of the musical amplifier.
Read more about this topic: Joe Venuti
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or style:
““Come, come” said Tom’s father, “at your time of life,
There’s no longer excuse for thus playing the rake—
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife.”
“Why, so it is, father—whose wife shall I take?””
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)