Charlie Ventura
American musician (1916–1992)
Charlie Ventura (born Charles Venturo; December 2, 1916 – January 17, 1992) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and bandleader from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Career
During the 1940s, Ventura played saxophone for the bands of Gene Krupa and Teddy Powell. In 1945, he was named best tenor saxophonist by DownBeat magazine. He led a band which included Conte Candoli, Bennie Green, Boots Mussulli, Ed Shaughnessy, Jackie Cain, and Roy Kral. He led big bands in the 1940s and 1950s and formed the Big Four with Buddy Rich, Marty Napoleon, and Chubby Jackson. Ventura was a sideman with Krupa through the 1960s, then worked in Las Vegas with comedian Jackie Gleason.
Ventura died of lung cancer in 1992. His great-grandson is the musician MJ Lenderman.
Discography
As leader
Stomping with the Sax (Crystalette, 1950)
Gene Norman Presents a Charlie Ventura Concert (Decca, 1953)
F.Y.I. (EmArcy, 1954)
In Concert (GNP, 1954)
An Evening with Charlie Ventura and Mary Ann McCall (Norgran, 1954)
Another Evening with Charlie Ventura and Mary Ann McCall (Norgran, 1954)
Jumping with Ventura (EmArcy, 1955)
An Evening with Mary Ann McCall and Charlie Ventura (Norgran, 1955)
Charlie Ventura's Carnegie Hall Concert (Norgran, 1955)
The New Charlie Ventura in Hi-Fi (Baton, 1956)
Plays Hi-Fi Jazz (Tops, 1957)
Crazy Rhythms (Regent, 1957)
Adventure with Charlie (King, 1957)
Here's Charlie (Brunswick, 1957)
East of Suez (Regent, 1958)
A Battle of Saxes (King, 1959)
Plays for the People (Craftsmen, 1960)
Live at the 3 Deuces!
“Charlie Ventura” enters the record as american musician (1916–1992). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charlie, Ventura and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Charlie Ventura” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Charlie, Ventura and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1067024. VIAF identifies the subject as 32184895. The Library of Congress control number is n91091996. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1992, 1945 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charlie Ventura” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.