Venuti's Optometrist

**pglasse** · Jul-16-2009, 9:12am

Greetings,

I was checking out a recording by jazz violin great Joe Venuti and guitarist Tony Romano called Never Before...Never Again and noticed that the liner notes contain the following passage.

"Venuti's unnamed optometrist steps in nimbly on mandolin on a swinging "I Want to Be Happy", and an unapologetically schmaltzy "Angelina", the pizza-pie-in-your-eye waltz whose lead vocals Romano sings in Italian."

Anyone know an optometrist who was hanging around Hollywood in 1954? I can't say that I actually hear mandolin in the first cut but, sure enough, Angelina has some pretty standard fare tremolo mandolin accompanying these two greats.

What's the lesson here for the mandolinists...don't give up your day job?

Paul Glasse
Austin, Texas

**mandocrucian** · Jul-16-2009, 9:35am

That's a really good (and unassuming) Venuti album; I liked it a lot.

I've got a couple LP copies of it (as does Erik H. - did you hear it over at his place?); came out on the no-name Dobre label. Turned up in the cut-out bins for a short while about 25 or 30 years ago or so and disappeared "forever", though I did see on AMG that it had reissued it on CD. (Thought I had a really rare "trading" item: how many LP copies of it were originally pressed? 2000? 3,000?)

Niles H

**Pete Martin** · Jul-16-2009, 10:32am

Total speculation on my part here, so take this with a grain of salt...

Venuti was very well known for his practical jokes (the bass player gig is my favorite). Maybe this "optometrist" was one of those?

**Bruce Clausen** · Jul-16-2009, 10:43am

"What's the lesson here for the mandolinists...don't give up your day job?"

Someone told Zoot Sims they'd worked a recording session that day where there were ten mandolins in the orchestra. Zoot said, "Yeah, you couldn't get a haircut in Jersey City all day."

BC