Antidote to Life's weary chase now available on youtube

I note with pleasure that Joe Venuti's recording of Tea for Two has finally made it to youtube - which is all the excuse I need to revisit an earlier piece about it - and embed the audio below, so that those immune to the lure of streaming services may also savour of its joys.


Several Venuti recordings of Tea for Two have been available on youtube for a considerable while, but not this particular performance, which remains hard to obtain on CD. I first became aware of it round about 1984, when Hubert Gregg played it on his BBC Radio 2 programme Thanks for the Memory. I often recorded those shows, and the cassette of that particular edition was endlessly replayed, bringing sunshine into some very cold winter evenings. And a few years later, early one summer morning, a high quality cassette copy of the original 78 which Gregg had played arrived in my letterbox - not by magic, though it felt magical at that moment of high stress.

But before we get onto that, a little more about the recording itself, and why it's a biggish deal (to me, anyway) that it is now up on youtube. A Gramophone review suggests why it has been so hard to find: it was recorded long after his sides with Eddie Lang and so wasn't eligible for the numerous CD compilations featuring the pair - even thought the anonymous reviewer, writing in July 1947, makes the point that Venuti's style hasn't changed much in the twenty or so years since the height of his fame, so these could pass for earlier recordings. The records aren't really swing, the reviewer suggests, "just Venuti improvising tunefully, and not very far from the original melodies, 'in tempo.' " But as Louis Armstrong often observed, sometimes a straight rendition of the melody is beautiful enough on its own. And so it proves here. Very much so.

And so to my promised Magic Moment. A few years ago, in an earlier incarnation as an educator of sorts, I prepared an illustrated talk about interpretations of Tea for Two, partly as a peg on which to hang some very basic points about jazz but mostly as an excuse to share the wonderful recording to which I'd been introduced by Hubert Gregg.

The initial idea for this talk, however, had come from another favourite radio presenter, Benny Green. He had written about Tea for Two in his collection of essays and reviews Drums in My Ears and probably discussed it on his Sunday afternoon show as well. A saxophonist himself, Green's basic point was that jazz musicians (and singers such as Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong) treat songs as blueprints and had been particularly attracted to the possibilities offered by Tea for Two over the decades.

Among other illustrations for the talk I chose the obvious (Art Tatum), plus a Ravens recording which was more jazzy than doo wop, as well as a lesser-known (to me, anyway) Django Reinhardt side with a very spare guitar solo. I think I chose a Fats Waller version as well.

The Venuti side was the climactic recording, after which the entire orchestra of that educational institution launched into a cha-cha version - although not before the Head of Music agreed in passing that Venuti's recording was indeed a lovely version.

Which prompts me to offer belated thanks to the still-going-strong non-musical Radio 4 presenter who very kindly sent me that cassette of the Venuti recording from the BBC record library.

This was especially welcome on the morning I received it. I don't want to relive every painful detail but I had been up most of the previous night selecting and arranging the work in students' folders for a marking session with colleagues (an annual source of dread) the next day. The only note of lightness had been, in the middle of the night, wearily opening yet another student's work to find a note stating:

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE LITERATURE PART OF THE FOLDER

Well, it made me smile, anyway. Maybe you had to be gripped by anxiety as I was at the possibility of my limitations - oh, alright, my laziness - being exposed in a matter of hours. And this unnecessary but somehow very pleasing signpost - pleasing, I suppose, because of its pointlessness, its sheer unnecessariness - had been, I may add, inserted by someone who had earlier copied a certain piece of work out again without complaint when I was obliged to confess to him that, er, it looked like I had lost it. I can't remember his name, but I thank him both for that task and that literal note of humanity which momentarily eased my burden. (Yes, yes, a burden which might have been avoided entirely had I taken the trouble to prepare everything earlier, but let's not complicate this paragraph unnecessarily.)
Anyway, after about an hour of unavoidable sleep followed by lots more frenzied industry I was just about ready to go out and face the next stage of my ordeal when the promised cassette of Tea for Two - which I hadn't heard for around five years, my tape of the relevant Hubert Gregg programme having been damaged - arrived in those far-off days of early morning postal deliveries.

I put it on. It was probably around this time of year or not long after, and the morning was sunny and quiet.

In my caffeine-boosted tiredness I listened to it several times before setting out: as when I first heard it on Thanks for the Memory in the early eighties, it still sounded fresh and full of possibilities, suggesting that that day and others to come might somehow be gettable-through and even bring the odd moment of happiness. Which is pretty much how it still sounds to me, despite being stripped of that context ... but why don't you decide for yourself?

The other side is  also pleasing: a similar MO, with a sudden acceleration in tempo halfway through, although perhaps not quite so memorable. Both sides were included on the high quality TDK cassette I received that morning. I still have the original talk about Tea for Two, though it may take some searching out; I will post it on this blog, along with the other recordings, if I do uncover it.

No more for a se'ennight.