Drivers pulling into the parking lot at 7th and Fitzwater in South Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood may recognize several of the musicians depicted in the mural overhead. Painted by artist Jared Bader, the three-story high image features some of the most revered artists of early 20th-century jazz and blues, including Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Bix Biederbecke and Bing Crosby.
For the most part, these famous figures are crowded into the background of the composition. They surround a central figure that casual visitors may have a harder time identifying without the help of a nearby historical marker. Eddie Lang sits on a wooden chair wearing a bright blue suit, a Gibson archtop perched on his knee. Behind him, Crosby shares the middle ground with another player that may be hard to pinpoint, but whose name has been inextricably linked with Lang’s in the minds of jazz aficionados: violinist Joe Venuti.
Lang and Venuti share space with the mural’s icons not just because they collaborated with all of them, but because their influence on the development of jazz was equally significant. That their names have slipped from the popular consciousness is due in large part to Lang’s early death at the age of 30 in 1933. Venuti’s career continued for decades, including a significant revival in the late ‘60s, but his most enduring work was created during his partnership with Lang.
Theirs is a distinctly American story. Both Lang, born Salvatore Massaro, and Giuseppe “Joe” Venuti were the sons of Italian immigrants, growing up within blocks of one another in Bella Vista, the heart of the city’s Italian-American community since the late 1800s. They met in elementary school, as violin students in the orchestra at the nearby James Campbell School. The two musicians became “inseparable pal[s],” in Lang’s own words (or the words of his wife Kitty, according to the hunch of historian Mike Peters, who maintains the indispensable website VenutiLang.com).
Venuti and Lang became pioneering voices on their respective instruments, neither of which was commonly found in jazz ensembles of the time. In this pre-amplification era, violin and guitar would have struggled to be heard over the conglomeration of horns in New Orleans-style bands. Partly out of necessity, the pair helped to define the sound of small-group and chamber jazz through their recordings as a duo and with their Blue Four, Five and Six combos — contemporaries of Armstrong’s celebrated Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.
By all accounts, the two men were polar opposites in personality: Lang a sober-minded introvert, Venuti more volatile, and an inveterate practical joker. Yet their chemistry is undeniable, born from a combination of dazzling virtuosity and raucous humor. Lang’s chordal phrasing is rich, resonant and constantly inventive, with a robust rhythmic swing rooted in a deep feel for the blues, best evidenced in his remarkable duos with blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson. He augmented that with single-string lines that paved the way for the guitar to eventually replace the louder, more percussive banjo. Venuti’s playing stems directly from his classical training, rife with audacious melodic leaps and operatic melodicism.
This year marks a full century since Venuti and Lang first recorded together as co-leaders. Over a series of sessions in late 1926, the duo refined a piece that would become one of their trademark tunes: “Stringing the Blues” exemplifies their sparkling rapport, swinging audaciously at a rapid-fire tempo that echoes contemporary favorites like “Tiger Rag” while revealing the pair’s unique approach. Venuti weaves expressive melodies over Lang’s bracing rhythms — made all the more percussive by the audible tapping of his feet — which the guitarist augments with single-string interjections.
The melding of their two sensibilities is vibrantly clear on “Wild Cat,” originally recorded in January 1927 for OKeh Records. The tune opens with a brief unison fanfare that breaks into a witty call-and-response dialogue before the duo tears off at a brisk trot. The brief exchange between the two is particularly charming, with a sly camaraderie informed by countless fishing excursions, and late nights spent in pool halls.
“Wild Cat” is largely a showcase for Venuti, who plays with lyrical eloquence despite the relentless pace established by his partner’s insistent propulsion. He suddenly soars into whistling high notes before dancing between Lang’s chordal hits, executing graceful melodic sentiments and then sawing rapid-fire lines later echoed by later Western swing fiddlers. There’s a thrilling tension between the violinist’s precise phrasing and Lang’s more relaxed sense of time, which the guitarist toys with throughout, suddenly suspending the rhythmic feel or adding single-note filigrees that engage with Venuti’s intricate lines.
The song became another of the duo’s signature pieces. They recorded it again in 1928 during a date with pianist Frank Signorelli. They also performed it — at an even more breakneck pace and with a dose of jocular showmanship — as a 30-second feature in the 1930 film King of Jazz. The film, which starred bandleader Paul Whiteman and his orchestra and includes the screen debut of Bing Crosby, is valuable for preserving the pair’s sole appearance on camera, in two-strip Technicolor and at their acrobatic best.
Venuti and Lang shared such an exhilarating rapport that they became a package deal for bands in need of a showstopper moment, live or on record. The Whiteman Orchestra was one of those, along with bands led by Jean Goldkette, Jack Pettis, Frankie Trumbauer and Roger Wolfe Kahn. They also recorded together with singers Annette Hanshaw, Cliff Edwards and Red McKenzie, and with cornetist Red Nichols, while Lang worked with Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Tommy Dorsey, Hoagy Carmichael, Clarence Williams and others.
Toward the end of his life, Lang was recruited by fellow Whiteman alum Bing Crosby as his accompanist of choice, appearing alongside the crooner in the 1932 film The Big Broadcast. In late March of 1933, he checked in to Park West Hospital in New York City for what was meant to be a routine tonsillectomy. Lang died following complications during the surgery.
After his partner’s death, Venuti led his own orchestra for nearly a decade, but failed to compete with the major bands of the swing era. His career stagnated as he grappled with alcohol during the 1950s, but his fortunes were renewed with the nostalgia craze of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, when he played with peers and acolytes including Zoot Sims, Stéphane Grappelli, Earl Hines and Leon Redbone.
The teaming with Grappelli was especially significant, as that French violinist’s collaboration with Django Reinhardt had eclipsed Venuti’s own work with Lang in the annals of jazz history. Reinhardt and Grappelli’s recordings with the Quintette du Hot Club de France so came to define the guitar-and-violin tandem in jazz that we tend to now hear that unique pairing with an inherent French-Manouche accent. But revisit the seminal, century-old recordings of Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, and it’s impossible to miss the unmistakable cadences of South Philly Italian.
