Ray Ventura

Ray Ventura

Raymond Ray Ventura (born April 16, 1908 in Paris , † March 29, 1979 in Palma ) was a French orchestra leader and music editor. He was the uncle of the singer and guitarist Sacha Distel .

Ray Ventura founded a jazz orchestra with classmates as a high school student . Influenced by the style of Paul Whiteman and Jack Hylton , he made his first recordings in 1929 with his entertainment orchestra "Ray Ventura et ses collégiens" , with which he also organized concerts and toured from 1931. Many of his hits, for which Paul Misraki wrote the music and André Hornez wrote the lyrics, became classics of the French chanson such as “Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise” or “Qu'est-ce qu'on attend pour être heureux? "

During the Second World War , Ventura fled to South America , where he toured with new musicians, including Henri Salvador . After the war, he returned to France and continued his pre-war successes by 1950. In 1948 he published the song Maria de Bahia by Paul Misraki and André Hœnez , which was made known in Germany as "Maria from Bahia" by René Carol . When the big entertainment orchestras went out of fashion around 1950, Ventura began working as a music editor. Among other things, he was involved in the discovery and promotion of Georges Brassens .