In the early years of the twentieth century, three men were born who would give life to the violin as a voice in the chorus of jazz; Joe Venuti (1903), Stephane Grappelli (1908), and Hezekiah Leroy Gordon “Stuff” Smith (1909). Together they form the three-legged stool on which all jazz violinists have sat since.
Joe Venuti
Venuti and Grappelli would form partnerships with guitarists–Eddie Lang in the former case, Django Reinhardt in the latter–while Stuff Smith would go his own way throughout his career. Venuti was one of the great practical jokers of jazz; he once called nearly two dozen bass players and asked them all to show up for an imaginary gig at a busy street corner where he sat in waiting to watch the confusion that ensued.
Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti
When he played, however, he was all business, and he and Lang combined for some of the earliest and most important recordings of the improvised music that is America’s most enduring gift to the world of the arts. Lang died prematurely in 1933 and Venuti went into a long period of artistic hibernation; he emerged in the late 60’s and played with both survivors of jazz’s infancy such as Earl Hines and younger (comparatively speaking) players such as Zoot Sims.
Stephane Grappelli, with Django Reinhardt, of Le Quintet de Hot Club de France
Grappelli teamed up with Django Reinhardt, the gypsy guitarist whose left hand was short two fingers, the result of a disastrous caravan fire in 1929. Together they formed Le Quintet de Hot Club de France, a Franglais label that aptly described the mixed breed contents within; a French interpretation of the “hot” records that were issuing forth from New Orleans, a combination of African rhythms and European harmonies.
Django
The two were separated when World War II broke out, Grappelli moving on to London, Reinhardt returning to France; they were reunited when the war ended but never worked together again on a regular basis after their first separation. Their brief reunions over the next seven years until Reinhardt’s death in 1953, are a tease–an indication of what we might have heard had they stayed together over the long haul.
Stuff Smith
For my tastes, Stuff Smith is the greatest of them all; he swings with a style that is loose-gaited and free, while never losing his orientation to the rhythm, a prerequiste for that indefinable something we call swing. He cited Louis Armstrong as his principal influence, and his tone on the violin did indeed recall Satchmo’s voice, as expressed on his trumpet and in his gravel-voiced singing. Like Armstrong, Smith was both a musician and an entertainer; he had novelty hits with “I’se a Muggin’” and “You’se a Viper”, but any of his versions of “Willow, Weep for Me” and “Cherokee” are worthy of scarce space in a suitcase packed for a desert island.
Tags: jazz, joe venuti, stephane grappelli, stuff smith, violin
