Cutting his first recording in 1927, Gene Krupa was one of the first drummers to make the drum a solo instrument, urging the development and use of multiple, tunable tom toms, the creation of the hi-hat cymbal, and popularizing many of the current cymbal techniques. By 1940, Krupa led his own swing orchestra (featured in “Ball of Fire”) but in 1943, Krupa was arrested for possession of two marijuana cigarettes and was given a three-month jail sentence.
Some will claim that the use of marijuana was why Krupa’s popularity never fulfilled his early promise, while others claim it was the change in popular music styles, since Krupa was never able to comfortably adjust to be-bop. Whichever is true, and my vote goes to the latter opinion, how you see Gene Krupa in “Ball of Fire” is Krupa at the top of his game.
In 1978, Gene Krupa became the first drummer inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame.
Krupa’s performance on drums with Benny Goodman and His Orchestra in the 1937 recording of “Sing, Sing, Sing” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982.
And last, and probably least, a somewhat “Reefer Madness” - oriented biopic entitled “The Gene Krupa Story” was released in 1959, starring Sal Mineo in the title role.
And yes, I too am no lover of Top 100 lists, but AFI's top lists being the aggregate opinion of a very large number of people in the business, yet in no way involved with pushing their own product, I feel are at least worthy of consideration.
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go_titans
10 years ago
Wow, that's a lot of great information, thanks very much for that!
Certainly we can agree that dismissing this movie as bad is an ignorant thing to do.
:)
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liscarkat (16476)
8 months ago
Krupa's popularity never fulfilled his early promise? He was a superstar from the mid 1930s until his premature death in 1973. And, there are many recordings, from the late 1940s-on, that confirm he was quite comfortable playing be-bop style.
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