Joe Venuti - Phantom Rhapsody

Joe Venuti’s New Yorkers. Don’t know date. Written by Will Hudson in 1933. In addition to being the first great jazz violinist, Joe Venuti was something of a prankster. In perhaps his most famous prank, Venuti called twenty-six tuba players in Hollywood and told them he had a gig lined up. There was no gig. (Tommy Dorsey said 37 to meet at Hollywood and Vine) He just wanted to see what would happen when they all arrived at the same time. Unfortunately, for Venuti, the musician’s union made him pay compensation to each musician who showed up for the event. Venuti was also famous for having pushed a piano out a window, and filling up Bix Biederbecke’s bathtub with Jello. What may have started out as one of his pranks became one of his musical innovations. To play chords on the violin, Venuti tied his bow around his instrument to bring it into contact with all four strings, and thus enabled him to play rich chordal passages of music. Born and raised in an Italian-American neigh