In the summer of 1922 a dark, brush-headed trap drummer named Gene Bertram Krupa, not long out of a Catholic college, heard Drummer Ben Pollack's band play in a Chicago hotspot. What struck him most about Ben Pollack's outfit was the playing of Pollack's clarinetist, a sober, scholarly-looking chap named Benny Goodman. Twelve years later Drummer Krupa joined Clarinetist Goodman's own orchestra and rode to fame with that rising organization.
With the passing of time Drummer Krupa's frenzied battering and occasional syncopated solos became principal features of every Goodman performance. Jiggling jitterbugs hung on every drumbeat; some partisans found Krupa the sugar...
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