Charlie Ventura

Genres:	Big Band & Swing • Jazz
Descriptive "tags":	jazz • saxophone • big band
Decades Active:	1940s • 1950s • 1970s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	Wikipedia

Biography

2 December 1916, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 17 January 1992, Pleasantville, New Jersey, USA. After playing C-melody and alto saxophones during his childhood, Ventura settled on tenor saxophone and in 1942 joined the Gene Krupa band. He was briefly with Teddy Powell during Krupa’s enforced disbandment before rejoining his old boss, where he was featured with the big band and as a member of the band-within-the-band, the trio.

In 1946 he formed his own big band, cut back to a small group, then increased in size again, this time playing a commercially orientated form of bebop under the banner of ‘Bop For The People’. During this period he also began playing baritone saxophone, but the group eventually disbanded in 1951. He then formed the Big Four with Marty Napoleon, Chubby Jackson and Buddy Rich. For most of the following two decades he alternated between running his own nightclub, the Open House in Philadelphia (which...

Read the Full Biography of Charlie Ventura