Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa in 1944
Background information
Birth name	Eugene Bertram Krupa
Born	(1909-01-15)January 15, 1909 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	October 16, 1973(1973-10-16) (aged 64) Yonkers, New York, U.S.
Genres	Jazz, swing, dixieland
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, bandleader
Instruments	Drums
Years active	1920s–1973
Associated acts	Eddie Condon, Benny Goodman, Louie Bellson, Anita O'Day

Eugene Bertram "Gene" Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was an American jazz and big band drummer, band leader, actor, and composer. Known for his highly energetic, flamboyant style and for his showmanship, Krupa is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time and one of the first major percussive soloists.

He is also known for defining the standard drum kit used today in collaboration with brands Slingerland and Zildjian. Krupa is considered "the founding father of modern drumset" by Modern Drummer magazine.

Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna (née Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa's nine children. Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, also of Polish descent. His parents were very religious Roman Catholics and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his grammar school days at various parochial schools. Upon graduation he attended Saint Joseph's College for a year, but later decided it was not his vocation.

Krupa studied with Sanford A. Moeller and began playing drums professionally in the mid-1920s with bands in Wisconsin. He broke into the Chicago scene in 1927, when he was picked by MCA to become a member of "Thelma Terry and Her Playboys", the first notable American jazz band—all-girl bands excepted—to be led by a female musician. The Playboys were the house band at The Golden Pumpkin nightclub in Chicago, and toured extensively throughout the eastern and central United States.

Krupa made his first recordings in 1927, with a band under the leadership of Red McKenzie and guitarist Eddie Condon. Along with other recordings by musicians from the Chicago jazz scene such as Bix Beiderbecke, these recordings are examples of Chicago style jazz. The numbers recorded at that session were "China Boy", "Sugar", "Nobody's Sweetheart", and "Liza". The McKenzie-Condon recordings are notable for being early examples of the use of a bass drum and snare drum/cymbals on recordings, at least for the studio where these recordings were made. Some of Krupa's big influences during this time were Father Ildefonse Rapp, Roy Knapp (both teachers of Gene). Later, there were cylinder recordings of African drumming that Gene intensely studied. Drummers such as Tubby Hall, Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds contributed to Gene's developing his own sound. Press rolls were a fairly common technique in the early stages of Gene's development and, stylistically, this technique was, to some degree, evident in Krupa's playing well into the late 1940s and early 1950s. Gene absorbed every bit of what he heard and formulated his own 'style' very early in his career, pulling from hundreds of different sources. There were many other drummers (Ray Bauduc, Chick Webb, George Wettling, Dave Tough) whose work influenced Gene's approach to drumming and other instrumentalists and composers (Frederick Delius, for one) who strongly influenced Gene's entire approach to music.