Sandy Brown Jazz

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Jazz As Art

Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang's Blue Five

Hey! Young Fella!

When you listen to music, you sometimes conjure images in your mind. Our Jazz As Art series invites you to listen to a piece of jazz and as it plays, scroll down the page and see which of the pieces of art I have chosen comes closest to the pictures in your mind. Hopefully, this will introduce you to recordings and art works you might not have spent time with before.

Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti

This month we roll back the years to the 1933. On the 28th of February that year, violinist Joe Venuti and guitarist Eddie Lang led this 'Blue Five' into a recording studion in New York - the others were Jimmy Dorsey (trumpet, clarinet, alto saxophone); Adrian Rollini (bass sax, hot fountain pen, piano and vibraphone) and Phil Wall (piano). Writing the liner notes to one Venuti/Lang/Rollini compilation, Nöel Hendrick said: 'These tracks are notable for the way in which they exploit the versatility of Rollini on bass saxophone, hot fountain pen and vibraphone, whilst Jimmy Dorsey, best known as an alto-sax and clarinet player also contributes some tasty trumpet work'.

Hey! Young Fella! was a popular tune of the day, written by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields for the 1933 musical film Dancing Lady starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. The film featured the screen debut of dancer Fred Astaire, who appeared as himself. The full lyrics are here, but we can get a taste of the song's theme (here, 'rubbers', of course, is the American word for 'wellington boots'):

You had nothing to sing about
The days were dreary and wet
Had no sunshine to sing about
And lots of rain to forget

Hey, young fella
Better close your old umbrella
Have a glorious day
Throwing rubbers away
'Cause it ain't gonna rain no more

Play the tune and scroll slowly down through the pictures I have chosen to go with the music (I think this only works if you spend time with each painting). The track is quite short so you might need to play it twice. See what you think.