Gene Krupa "stole Benny [Goodman]'s thunder ... Krupa picked up a new set of Slingerland drums at the Fred Walker Instrument Company in Baltimore, Maryland, leaving his old instruments ...

Perhaps as much as Goodman lived the clarinet or John Coltrane the tenor sax, Krupa lived the drums, as much an expression of elan vital as a way of making a living. No exaggeration, Duke Ellington ...