Gene Krupa Recordings

Gene Krupa
(1909 – 1973)

Percussion instruments are thought to be the oldest form of musical instrument after the human voice. Throughout the history of music, the function of drums and drumming has been to provide a rhythmic framework for the rest of the composition. To be sure, without the framework of rhythm to keep the other players together the different tones and sounds of the other instruments and voices would descend into cacophony, but the function of a rhythm section could probably be effectively handled by a clockwork device like a metronome. While the drums give a composition backbone, even in Jazz, drums rarely had a real voice of their own since they had nothing to say beyond establishing rhythm.

Gene Krupa changed all that.

Anna and Bartloliej Krupa of Chicago had hoped that their baby boy Eugene, the youngest of nine, would go into the priesthood. Unfortunately, Bartley died when Gene was very young, and all of the kids had to find work to help support the family. At the age of 11, little Gene found work with his brother Peter as a chore boy at the Brown Music Company. Gene found that he was desperate to play an instrument, any instrument. He picked up the saxophone at school, but even with the employee discount, the family could not afford very much. "The cheapest item was the drums, 16 beans, I think, for a set of Japanese drums; a great high, wide bass drum, with a brass cymbal on it, a wood block and a snare drum."

Mama Anna never gave up on the wish for Gene to become a priest, but after attending parochial schools and a year at Saint Joseph's College, he finally admitted that the vocation was not for him. He spent the mid-1920s laying down the beat for a few Wisconsin bands, and in 1927 he broke into the Chicago Jazz scene when the Music Corporation of America hired him to play with "Thelma Terry and her Playboys" (bass-playing Thelma was one of the few women to be taken seriously as the leader of a Jazz band, her break came when she led the house band at Colosimo, a restaurant owned by Al Capone).

One of Gene's bandmates in the Playboys was guitarist and banjo player Eddie Condon, a pioneer in the "Chicago school" of Dixieland Jazz. Condon helped Gene to work in recording and meet and work with other musicians, such as Bix Beiderbecke, Mezz Mezzrow, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. Most critics cite Krupa as the first "drum soloist", raising the role of drummer from simply keeping rhythm or "noise maker". In true Jazz fashion, Krupa created a voice for drums which collaborated with the other musicians in the song.

He was also a pioneer in the technology of drum kits. Working with H.H. Slingerland of the Slingerland Drum company, he helped to popularize "tunable" tomtoms whose skin tension could be adjusted, as opposed to the traditional tacked skins of older drum kits. Gene also developed the high-hat cymbal with the Zildjian company that could be played with a foot-pedal or drumsticks.
Gene was playing with the Benny Goodman Orchestra when they became the first "Jazz" act to play Carnegie Hall in 1938. He parted with Goodman soon thereafter, supposedly because of the popularity of his drum solos (it was said that Benny Goodman had trouble sharing the spotlight with his bandsmen). He soon formed his own band, and in 1941 appeared with Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (Stanwyck's songs in the film were dubbed by Martha Tilton). Krupa was also involved in the biographical films The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and The Benny Goodman Story (1956). The Gene Krupa Story starring Sal Mineo was released in 1959.

Krupa was arrested in 1943 in San Francisco for possession of two marijuana cigarettes and sentenced to 90 days, of which he served 84. By the end of the 1940s, the Big Band scene was drawing to a close, but Gene kept his outfit together on a smaller scale for a few years. He passed away in Yonkers, New York, in 1973, from leukemia and heart failure. He was 64.