Drummer Gene Krupa is the man who literally invented the modern-day drum kit. The legendary drummer is recognized as the first drummer to record using a bass drum, the first drummer to use a hi-hat cymbal as we know it today and was instrumental in creating tunable tom-tom and snares. When he felt he needed a thinner cymbal, he convinced the Zildjian company to make them. On top to that, he brought drums forward, from being an accompanying rhythm instrument into the spotlight, recognized with his drum solo on Benny Goodman’s 1927 recording of “Sing, Sing, Sing” https://youtu.be/3mJ4dpNal_k.
Eugene Bertram Krupa (1/15/09-10/16/73) came from a large Polish immigrant family growing up on Chicago’s South Side. He started playing drums while attending Bowen High School (2710 E. 89th St.). Growing up in Chicago he took drums lessons from the legendary Roy Knapp and studied tympani with Saul Goodman. As mentioned in the book Franks For the Memories, “Krupa was a quick study. Eager to learn, he did not hesistate to ask other drummers about how they played certain licks.” After graduation his parents sent him to St. Joseph College in Indiana to prepare him for the priesthood. Quickly deciding that was not his vocation, he turned his studies to music, studying under rudiment drum teacher Sanford Moeller.
Krupa began playing professionally in the mid- ‘20s in Wisconsin. In 1927 he joined Thelma Terry and Her Playboys, one of the first known big bands lead by a female musician, as the house band at the Golden Pumpkin club in Chicago. Krupa would appear on six recordings by Terry’s band in 1928.
In 1929, Krupa, along with guitarist Eddie Condon, moved from Chicago to New York to work with theater pit bands alongside trombonist Glenn Miller and clarinetist Benny Goodman.
When Goodman stepped out of the pit to take his big band into the ballrooms, Krupa joined along. Between late 1934 and 1938, Krupa came to fame as star drummer for Benny Goodman, but his high profile within the band, his showmanship and popularity with audiences irritated Goodman and led to a public quarrel — after which Krupa left to set up his own orchestra.
The Gene Krupa Orchestra became one of the most popular swing bands in the U.S. pre-WWII.
By the early ‘50s, the costs of traveling with a swing orchestra were rising with most of the primary band leaders including Count Basie, Woody Herman and Krupa himself would reduce the size of their touring lineups to octets, quartets, and even trios. Krupa and renowned drummer Buddy Rich would also get hired as part of the Jazz at the Philharmonic series of concert in New York in what was termed “drum battles.”
That decade also saw Krupa heading to Hollywood where he would appear in the films The Glenn Miller Story and The Benny Goodman Story. That was followed by Krupa’s own film biography The Gene Krupa Story in 1959.
With an interest in training the next generation of drummers, Krupa would open a music school with peer Cozy Cole. Some of the students would include artists who went on to rock and roll acclaims including Peter Criss of Kiss, Doug Clifford of Credence Clearwater Revival and Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls.
Krupa would continue touring and performing into the early ‘70s. Sadly, he succumbs to heart failure that was compounded by leukemia and emphysema in 1973. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City.