Ventura Harbor Jazz Club Owner Dies Mysteriously

Charles (Chuck) Gelvin, a former jazz musician and part owner of Hi Cees, a popular Ventura Harbor jazz bar, mysteriously drowned in the harbor near the boat on which he lived, authorities said Sunday.

Gelvin, 69, died Saturday night from drowning and there were no signs of foul play, Ventura County Deputy Coroner Dale Zentzis said after an autopsy on the body. Ventura police detectives could not be reached for comment.

The coroner’s office said the results of toxicological tests would be available in about a month.

Gelvin’s body was discovered about 10 p.m. Saturday floating face down in the water about 100 yards from where the boat--called the Hi Cees after the jazz bar--was docked. The blue-and-white 32-foot boat is a short walk from the bar.

Associates said Gelvin was last seen at a dockside barbecue near the bar about 8 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s strange,” said his grandson, Michael Shea, 32, of Orange County. “He had no enemies at all.”

On Sunday, stunned friends and relatives sat around tables under blue-and-white sun umbrellas, drinking beer and telling stories about Gelvin who, they declared, led a life definitely in the fast lane.

As they talked about the popular Gelvin, a well-known character among the harbor’s shop owners and boating devotees, the live music of John Marx and the Blues Patrol spilled out of the bar and onto the crowded docks.

“He knew Charlie Parker,” said Marx during a break, talking about his friend’s acquaintance with the legendary jazz saxophonist. “He hung out with all those cats in the ‘50s.”

Marx and others said Gelvin played trumpet in the high-powered, innovative Stan Kenton trumpet section in the 1940s, when Kenton was attracting national attention with his Artistry in Rhythm big band.

However, Gelvin’s name does not appear as a member of Kenton’s organization in jazz archives.

Friends and relatives said the white-goateed, happy-go-lucky Gelvin, a widower, loved living life to the fullest.

“He loved music, fast cars and fast women,” Shea said.

Gelvin was raised in Chicago and received two bachelor of science degrees in physics and engineering at the University of Illinois, friends said. He worked for about four years for Hughes Aircraft Co. in Culver City, then for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in St. Louis, Mo., until he retired about four years ago.

Gelvin’s musical training was put to use as a bugler in the U. S. Army during World War II, waking the troops at his station in Iceland, Shea said.

Jack Jones, 62, of Northridge, who was Gelvin’s roommate in Santa Monica when they both worked for Hughes, said his friend of four decades kept his trumpet in a drawer, but never played it in his presence.

But there was no doubt that Gelvin loved jazz, said Jones, the commodore of the Channel Islands Yacht Club, who was sitting at a table outside the jazz bar with his wife, Norma.

Jones recalled attending a jazz festival in the High Sierra and telephoning Gelvin to tell him what a terrific time everyone was having.

“ ‘Come on up,’ I said,” Jones recalled. “He was there in four hours.”

Rick Ross, the small bar’s co-owner, recalled first meeting Gelvin a couple of years ago “on the fourth bar stool,” he said pointing to the bar, while the two were scouting for a business in which to invest. They decided to buy the bar and turn it into a jazz joint.

“We’ll keep it open in his name,” Ross said.

In his last years, friends and relatives said Gelvin was battling a number of illnesses, but that he invariably remained in high spirits, oftentimes dancing with female patrons in his bar.

Shea said his grandfather’s car was his other passion and that he loved to drive an ’87 Ford Mustang convertible at high speeds and had the traffic tickets to prove it.

When Shea’s car broke down in Orange County and he needed emergency cash to get it out of a repair shop, he swears that Gelvin got “from here (where he was sitting outside the bar) to there (Orange County) in one hour.”

“I thought he was going to die in a car accident,” Shea said.

Then, looking around at the crowds enjoying the sun-drenched day, he added:

“The things he loved the most were the music, the water and the bar--and that’s the way he went.”