Talk:Joe Venuti

Untitled
The greatest jazz violinist of all time! But Stephan Grapelli (who started out as a Venuti follower) is now better known. Grapelli was a very pleasant dance-band violinist: Venuti was a red-hot jazzman! Before them both however, came Stuff Smith, who was most like and influence on both Venuti and Grapelli.

Jim Denham

External links for possible inclusion: (above link appears to be dead as of 12/5/2013)2602:306:BDD1:7150:AC78:4085:E130:F8DE (talk) 15:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Venuti photographs: http://www.joe-venuti.com/index.html
 * Biography: http://www.parabrisas.com/d_venutij.php

RosinDebow 07:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Name
Why is this at "Giuseppe Venuti"? Everyone knew him as Joe Venuti! 204.14.146.130 14:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that he is commonly known as Joe, but his birth certificate says Giuseppe. See http://www.joe-venuti.com/p2a.html RosinDebow 14:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that's persuasive. After all Stuff Smith is not at Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith. There isn't even a redirect from that name to his. His birth name should be in the article, but I don't know if it needs to be the name of the article.--T. Anthony 10:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I moved it to Joe Venuti. "Joe Venuti" "jazz" gets 104,000 hits while "Giuseppe Venuti" gets 1,240 total. "Joe Venuti jazz" gets some results, "Giuseppe Venuti jazz" gets nothing. In addition to that only three articles linked to "Giuseppe Venuti", but almost 30 articles linked to "Joe Venuti." We also go by common name as is the case with fellow Sicilian-Americans Sharkey Bonano, Chick Corea, Tony Scott, and George Wallington. Also with other jazz musicians like Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, etc.--T. Anthony 05:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Birthdate and birthplace
Livio Cerri, author, liner notes from "Joe Venuti in Milan," Vanguard VSD 79396. Cerri writes that Venuti was born in Lecco (Como) in 1894. Cerri says that the alleged misinformation of Venuti's published birthdate of 1904 and being born on a steamer headed for America is not accidental misinformation, as he writes. Rather, according to the liner notes, it was a trick employed by Italian immigrants during a heavy period of emigration to the United States. Cerri says Giuseppe's father moved the birthdate up by ten years in order to facilitate Joe's eventual American naturalization. Joe was already 10 years old when he arrived with his parents in the United States and eventually, Philadelphia.Loneagle 17:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * And Joachim Berendt writes in "The Jazz Book" that "...when Joe was 70 he could afford to tell the truth. He was born in Northern Italy, near Lago di Como" AllyD 09:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Garry Giddins wrote that Venuti enjoyed the confusion of having multiple reference books contradict each other; I've quoted his explanation. For this reason, I think it's best if we don't give any definitive birthdate for Venuti. DS (talk) 03:09, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, this is interesting: (the archived version of) Joe-Venuti.com has what looks like a birth certificate, claiming 1903 in Philadelphia. Is it real? Did some 1903 registrar accept a bribe? No way to know. DS (talk) 18:26, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Practical Jokes
Robert Crumb's comics anthology Weirdo had a one page feature about Venuti's career as a practical joker. I don't have the article with me, but will follow up with links. K8 fan 05:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

More sources!
Music historian Christopher Popa has a big batch of sources at his page about Venuti - newspaper articles, etc. Anyone with back issue access? DS (talk) 18:53, 29 July 2017 (UTC)