Jerry Tucker, One Of Seattle's Best-Known Big-Band Leaders

Jerry Tucker - a clean-cut guy with a clean-cut sound on saxophone and clarinet - was among Seattle's most popular bandleaders for 40 years.

He wrote his own arrangements of pop tunes and standards, played dances and bar mitzvahs throughout the area, and even played the Seattle World's Fair.

He was so devoted to his style of music that when club owners in the 1960s and '70s cut costs by hiring smaller combos rather than bands, he stuck to his big-band guns.

Few of Mr. Tucker's weekend and evening listeners knew that on weekdays he held a "regular" job as a manufacturer's representative for Electrical Building Supply. He held it the same length of time he had worked as a bandleader: 40 years.

Mr. Tucker died Jan. 18 during heart surgery. He was 76.

"When he retired from his work about 10 years ago," said his wife of 55 years, Raye Tucker of Bellevue, "he just dropped (the music), too. He wanted to concentrate on golf, which he came to love just as much.

"Now his grandson, Jeff, has his saxophone and plays with the Roosevelt (High School) Marching Band."

Mr. Tucker, a Seattle native, always wanted to be a musician. He started a band right out of Garfield High School. In the Army in World War II he was sent to Yale University to learn Mandarin, then posted to China as an interpreter with the Chinese Combat Command. But he managed to get in some band time, too.

Back in Seattle, hoping to enter the import-export business in Shanghai, he earned a degree in Far East Studies at the University of Washington in 1950, only to find the borders to China closed.

A practical man who cherished his family, he stayed put, got the sales job, and fulfilled his dream of being an arranger and bandleader.

"I got him bookings in the early days," said his wife. "I went on a lot of his gigs, too, because he was quite good-looking, and the girls always swooned when he led the band."

Other survivors include his son, Doug Tucker, Bellevue, and daughter, Cherie Tucker, Seattle.

A celebration of Mr. Tucker's life was held yesterday.

Remembrances may be made to the American Heart Association, 4414 Woodland Park Ave. N., Seattle, WA, 98103; or to Overlake Hospital Foundation, 1035 116th Ave. N.E., Bellevue, WA 98004.