Charlie Ventura: Adventure With Charlie

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 of the early and mid 1940s playing in Gene Krupa's bands before leading his own groups and recorded only a handful of 12-inch albums.

One of these albums—a rare one—was reissued digitally in January on a new Jasmine CD. The album is a little-known 12-inch LP called Adventure With Charlie. Recorded for the King label in March 1957, Venture was backed by John Coates, Jr. (p), Billy Bean (g), Gus Nemeth (b) and Tony DeNicola (d). What's interesting about this group is their high bar for precision, a hallmark of most of Ventura's sessions and ensembles. Coates and Bean were perfectionist players, as was the case with Nemeth and DeNicola.

Tonally, both Coates and Bean were solid foils for Ventura, adding brightness to his pushy, anxious reed. The tracks are This Can't Be Love, Give Me the Simple Life, Laura, Ventura's Pocahontas, Sweet Georgia Brown, Mad About the Boy, Blues in the Closet, Ventura's In Oblivion, If I Had You, Take the A Train, I Can't Give You Anything But Love and Liza. Interestingly, each track has a different feel. On ballads, Ventura is lush and smooth (Laura, Mad About the Boy) and on mid-tempo numbers he's cool and spirited (Liza, I Can't Give You Anything But Love).

Throughout, Coates and Bean are marvelous. Both were impeccable players, with a distinct sense of exactness on fast and slow numbers. There's no slurring of passages or bending notes. Their lines are run with pinpoint accuracy, with every note distinctly heard.

In addition to Adventure with Charlie, this new release includes Gene Krupa: Jazz Trio Live at the Band Box, from January 1953, recorded live at the famed club next to New York's old Birdland on Broadway between 52nd and 53rd streets (above). Ventura was joined by drummer Gene Kurpa and pianist Teddy Napoleon. I'm not a huge fan of this session. None of the tracks are handled artfully, and the sound is bootleg quality. Krupa pounds away on the drums as if using baseball bats, and Ventura makes a mess of many of the songs, including Stardust. We would have been better off if Krupa and Ventura went outside for a smoke and left the club to Napoleon. But Krupa fans will find plenty of joy in the re-issue of Adventure With Charlie.

Charlie Ventura died in 1992, at 75.