Joe Venuti tuba (or maybe bass) story:
It is approximately 8:00 p.m. on Broadway in the bustling metropolis of New York City. The year is 1926 . . . or is it 1946? No one knows for sure. As theater patrons hustle to their evening’s entertainment, dozens of men dressed in tuxedos, carrying instrument cases larger than themselves, begin to assemble on the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The musicians with their instruments mix with the bustling theater crowd and evening traffic to make the sidewalk and the street practically impassable. From across the street, inside the old Brill Building, a man watches these disruptive events and enjoys a hearty laugh. The man is Joe Venuti, both one of the world’s greatest musicians and practical jokers. According to legend, Venuti was the person who called the musician’s union to hire 36 bass players for the evening and instructed them to meet on said corner so he could sit back and enjoy the ensuing chaos. Some version of the story have the number at 48 musicians and some others have the instrument as tubas instead of basses. It doesn’t matter. Any version you choose gets the point across that Joe Venuti was not your average violinist.
Venuti’s joke turned out to be a rather expensive one as the union forced Venuti to pay each player their evening rate for the phony gig. It didn’t matter to Venuti. He got what he wanted out of it – fun, laughter and pandemonium