Word: krupa
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...several re-issues on Bluebird, "Swing Is Here" and "I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music" by Gene Krupa and added stars is a very interesting record. Done in 1936 (February), it forecasts what was to happen to the Goodman band a year later: loud but powerful rhythm and fast, amazingly technical solos. Benny Goodman (clarinet), Roy Eldridge (trumpet) and Chu Berry (tenor sax) play the solos on this record. With the exception of Chu's, the solos are repetitious as the dickens and sound like every solo the men had made--and Chu's are just fair...
Best part of the records is the driving rhythm achieved, even at the made tempos picked. Therefore, where is bassist israel Crosby who played on these records? A John Hammond discovery who made some wonderful records with Krupa and Fietcher Henderson, he has dropped out of sight for the last couple of years. We can think of plenty of bands who could use his strong, easy playing...
Mckinley is my mind one of the host drum men in the country. Possessing a technique that rivals Krupa's in its crystal clarity, it seems to me after hearing him not only with Bradley but with the Jimmy Dorsey band that his ideas are more original and more strikingly Illustrated than those Jungle Gene." Plus the fact that McKinley is somebody's gift to a brass section. While other drummers are pounding away at just keeping good steady time, McKinley is backing the brass on every lick they play and thus adding immeasureably to the lift of the hand...
...foxtrot that was told to go South American, met a rhumba on the way and gave up in the middle... Tiger Rag"--this tune has been torn apart for so many years by so many bands, that any version is apt to sound trite. At least however this Krupa version doesn't get out of taste very often and doesn't have any trombone "tiger" growls...
...More Than You Know" next week. And due out shortly are the following which should be plenty good: "Swing Out" (a new master of this Luis Russell record)... "When It's Sleepy Time Down South" by Louis Armstrong... "New Orleans Twist" by Gene Gifford... "Swing Is Here" by Gene Krupa (with Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, and Jesse Stacy solos, this is worth getting)... "Peggy" by McKinney's Cotter Pickers... "Stingeree Blues" by King Oliver...