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:
“Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel
Mam, we’re playing funerals now.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)