Charlie Ventura, 75; Sax Player Performed With Giants of Jazz

Charlie Ventura, the nationally honored tenor saxophonist for jazz great Gene Krupa and whose own big bands and combos helped popularized “be-bop,” has died. He was 75.

Ventura died Friday of cancer in a nursing home near Atlantic City, N. J.

In his heyday in the 1940s, Ventura performed and recorded with other well-known jazz artists, including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Stan Kenton and Frank Sinatra.

He won Esquire’s New Star award in 1946, Downbeat’s poll for best tenor sax in 1945 and for best small combo in 1948, and Metronome’s poll for best tenor sax and small combo in 1949.

In 1948, Ventura adopted the slogan “Bop for the People” for his octet and presented popular arrangements of voices and instruments to perform the complicated be-bop or “bop” rhythms.

In the early 1950s, Ventura ran his own nightclub, called the Open House, near his native Philadelphia. But that venture, like many others in his up-and-down life, was short-lived.

Over the years, Ventura worked as an upholsterer and an instrument repair technician. He suffered ulcers, repeated thefts of his saxophones and two divorces. Although he was part of a Krupa trio that recorded the hit “Dark Eyes,” he had been paid only the flat 1945 musicians’ union scale of $33.

He played from time to time, most frequently in Las Vegas, well into the 1960s.

After that, Ventura faded, according to Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather, into a “whatever-became-of story.”

He made something of a last comeback in 1981, when fellow Krupa saxophonist Musky Ruffo found him through a classified ad in International Musician that read: “Charlie Ventura--where the hell are you?” Ventura played every Sunday night for months at a Hollywood club called Mulberry Street.

During his last decade, Ventura suffered from bad gums and teeth, making it difficult to play sax. Last year, friends donated money for false teeth and he was planning to perform again when his cancer was diagnosed.

Ventura spent his final years at an apartment owned by his friend and fellow musician Lewis Pasquale in Pleasantville, N. J.

Ventura is survived by two sons, a daughter and 11 grandchildren.