Search - Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang :: Volume 1&2 1920's & 1930's Sides

I wish there were more from Lang

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 03/01/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"My first exposure to either of these two men were the great duo's that Eddie Lang (guitar) did with blues guitarist, Lonnie Johnson, around the same time as these recordings were made. Lang was a great guitarist and he was the leading factor in my purchase of this cd. Maybe that is why I am somewhat disappointed in it. Now I realize that Joe Venuti (violin) was definitely the leader of this band. Venuti takes one or two solos in every single track on this set. Lang, on the other hand, takes about six or eight solos on the entire 2-disk set. Lang does display great and creative rhythm-guitar talents on almost every tune but I would have really liked to hear him take at least a few more solos. Overall though this does end up being an enjoyable collection. Jimmy Dorsey has a few very nice clarinet and/or alto-sax solos throughout. Venuti is quite a soloist but after two disks of him thoroughly dominating every tune I really found myself wishing that either Dorsey or Lang would have taken more solos just to mix things up.Oh, if you aren't really familiar with this music, this is what I'd consider "string swing", although yes, horns and pianos do appear as well. The bands on this set are sort of considered to be the predecessors to Django and Stephane's bands.Many of you may be more familiar with these particular Venuti-Lang bands than I am. If you've loved them before from other partial issuings of the music contained herein, I am quite sure you'll love this set. It was re-mastered by the same guy (John R.T. Davies) who has done the recent brilliant re-masterings on JSP's Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton box-sets. Sonically, this is as good as it gets for material recorded back then. If you love this band I am quite sure this will be an upgrade in sonic-quality for you.Not as much from Lang as I was expecting and hoping for, but an enjoyable collection of pre-war string-swing nonetheless."

Hot string jazz

"Gimpy" Peach Johnson | 02/23/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I had heard a few Eddie Lang/Joe Venuti records before purchasing this 2-disc set and liked them well enough but didn't count them among my favorites (I usually prefer the 1920s dance bands). I saw this set in a music store and decided to buy it to "expand my horizons" a bit more. This was one of the best music purchases I have made in a long time!Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti were masters of their instruments (guitar and violin, respectively). They were pioneers in the "string swing" type of jazz, almost a decade before Django and Stephane Grappelli started doing it over in France (admitting to have been influenced by Lang and Venuti). Only a few of the selections on these two discs are popular tunes of the day, most of the others are compositions of those performing (and it's not just Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang--we also hear Jimmy Dorsey, Frankie Trumbauer, Rube Bloom, Adrian Rollini, and some others on some of the "Blue Four" tracks). These recordings were ahead of their time, and they hold up remarkably well today.Thanks to the excellent remastering by John R. T. Davies, the recordings sound fresher than the few previous re-issues I had heard (on RCA Victor). Joe Venuti's high-pitched harmonics come through sparkling clear as a bell, and Adrian Rollini's bass sax is so warm and rounded, it's the best thing we have to hearing the group perform live.Most of the tracks on the disc have the same overall texture. If you like one, you'll like 'em all. If you don't like what you hear in the Amazon.com RealAudio samples, you probably won't care much for the rest of the tracks on these discs. Since buying this set, however, it has really grown on me, and I now count it among the best discs in my jazz collection."