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Charlie Ventura

Tenor man Charlie Ventura was was a prominent fixture on the jazz scene during his era. Born Charles Venturo he was one of thirteen children from a musical family who went on to become a jazz legend, and was named "Number One Tenor Saxophonist" by Down Beat Magazine in 1945.

In the summer of 1942, Charlie got a call at his day job at the Philadelphia Navy yard to join Gene Krupa's band. Unwilling to relinquish the security of a paycheck, he turned them down. Then came the second phone call and before long, Charlie was on the road with the band becoming a featured soloist, along with trumpet star, Roy Eldridge and singer Anita O'Day. Throughout the forties, fifties and sixties, Charlie Ventura and Gene Krupa made music history together as America's leading jazz greats.

Ventura was one of the first jazz musicians to make the transition from swing to be-bop. In 1946, he formed his own "Bop for the People" band, playing a commercially-oriented form of be-bop. Continuing to play with The Gene Krupa Trio, he cut “Dark Eyes,” which led to over a dozen released albums, including “Charlie Ventura With Special Guest Charlie Parker”(1949) “Bop For The People”(1949-53) and “Charlie Ventura And His Orchestra.”(1954-55)

Many fans will remember the succession of great jazz groups, fronted by Charlie, that appeared at The Open House nightclub he owned in Lindenwold, New Jersey. Playing Las Vegas with Jackie Gleason, and Atlantic City, New York and Philadelphia, Charlie Ventura was the consummate jazzman.

"Jazz is maturing and maturity carries responsibilities. I feel that I'm supposed to make people laugh, make them cry, make them day dream and give them some excitement," Charlie explained. His lifetime of musical achievement ended in January, 1992, but his legacy to the world of jazz lives on. Source: Bruce Klauber

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Radio & Podcasts

Crate Digging in the East Village + RSD Releases

Read "Crate Digging in the East Village + RSD Releases" reviewed by David Brown


This week's episode highlights some enlightening archival live recordings from Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, and Charles Mingus, recently issued on Record Store Day. The program also features finds uncovered during a recent crate-digging trip to New York's East Village, including selections by Wayne Horvitz, Dorothy Donegan, Terry Gibbs, Jimmy Giuffre, and Joanne Brackeen. The show opens with newly unearthed 45s from the Joe Newman Octet, Don Elliott, and Charlie Ventura and His Orchestra, followed by a new track from Alex ...

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Charlie Ventura: Adventure With Charlie

Charlie Ventura: Adventure With Charlie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

The last time I posted about tenor saxophonist Charlie Ventura was in 2013. As I wrote ruefully back then, the 78-era soloist seems to have disappeared completely from view in today's jazz world, his recordings and contribution sadly forgotten. Throughout Ventura's career, his solos were uniformly high energy, earthy and flawless. He was a swing-era blower who crossed over to bebop starting in 1946 and recorded live with Charlie Parker in 1949 at New York's Royal Roost. Ventura spent much ...

Recording

Charlie Ventura on Baritone

Charlie Ventura on Baritone

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Saxophonist Charlie Ventura has gotten a bum rap. For too long he's been thought of as a Coleman Hawkins clone and his vast contributions to jazz and R&B have been overlooked or ignored. His name no longer comes up in jazz circles, and his recordings are rarely heard or praised. I can't think of the last time a serious jazz radio show featured him. It's as if Ventura had been run out of town on a rail. What a shame. ...

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