There were drummers before them, most notably Warren 'Baby' Dodds,younger brother of clarinettist Johnny Dodds, and Arthur James 'Zutty' Singleton; and alongside them legends such as Jo Jones and Art Blakey, and later Philly Jo Jones and Elvin Jones; and after them giants such as Tony Williams, and the amazing British drummers Allan Ganley, Tony Oxley, and John Marshall. But when push comes to shove there will only be two names, two men, two drummers who can claim to have changed the very concept of jazz drumming - Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa.
I could have, should have, written Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, because it was Gene who re-thought the philosophy, the ideology even, of what a drummer was there to do: was he there to simply add unpretentious backing, or was he there to add something special, to drive the ensemble along, to give it a distinctive sound, to give it an engine, a power source. Gene Krupa was never there to simply add unpretentious backing.
He was also there to add excitement - a lot of excitement!
And it was that excitement which turned an increasingly moribund musical form - early 1930s jazz - into something huge, and hugely popular - Swing.
Now, many may disagree, but for me Swing was still jazz, but brought up to date. It was now slick, stylish, hard hitting, loud, terrifyingly professional, and, by 1939-40, a social statement about how America saw itself. If only Hitler had gone to Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert in 1938...?
If only.
When you listen to the early Benny Goodman Orchestra recordings from the mid 1930s the band has a wholly different sound to any other around ( listen to 'King Porter Stomp' and 'Bumble Bee Stomp' to hear what I mean), and that sound comes out of Krupa's grasp of dynamics, and his total command of the outfit: what he does - and in later years suddenly decides to do half way through a number - is what the band does, they have no choice but to follow, and to follow by listening, which is at the heart of jazz anyway - listening.
Both Gene and Buddy were hard hitters, but in different ways: Gene always seemed to use a very loose snare, whereas Buddy's was as taught as it could be, creating a much harder, more brittle sound compared to Gene's, whose hits are always seemingly softer and deeper. If we think in military hardware terms think of Buddy Rich as a German MG42 machine gun drilling out over 800 rounds a minute, while Gene Krupa's sound is much more that of triple anti-aircraft fire. Both are deadly.
If Gene Krupa got his big break with Benny Goodman in the mid 1930s, then Buddy Rich received his in the late 1930s ( Krupa was born in 1909, Rich in 1917) when he joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (a band to my ears that sounded somewhat lacklustre at times, and one that was no match for Goodman or Basie) turning it into one of the most dynamic, swish, and sophisticated outfits of its day. Just listen to that band's recording of 'On The Sunny Side Of The Street' and 'Indian Love Call', which are superb pieces of Swing, almost concertos, with Buddy Rich's precise drumming at the core, driving, like Krupa, the whole outfit, who, to a man, were listening to his every rim-shot, and every brush stroke.
Both drummers went on to lead their own bands, Gene Krupa's perhaps most successfully throughout the 1940s. In the 1950s they played regularly on the JATP (Jazz At The Philharmonic) concert circuit, often on the same bill. In the early 1950s they made some recordings together based on the JATP line ups.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s both drummers free-lanced, with Krupa, due to ill health, going into retirement for a time. In the mid 1960s Buddy Rich formed what became one of the finest hard-hitting orchestras in the jazz world, invariably made up of young aspiring musicians who had to blow their socks off to keep up Rich, who took no prisoners. I saw the several versions of that orchestra on quite a few occasions (never did get to see Krupa), and the experience was utterly mind blowing. On one occasion, after a two and a half hour concert, the audience kept calling for 'more, more', until Rich accused us all of being members of the Gestapo, which was fair comment as he was obviously knackered, but more he gave us, and it was even faster than before which put us very firmly in our place.
But there is one recording, Burnin' Beat, made in 1962, that gives a wonderful example of the two men working together, and how two different styles of playing can enhance the overall feel of a band, at the same time creating sparks of creativity as each tries to out do the other, which is an impossible task anyway, but the effort they take, and the fun they must have had doing it, is self-evident, and an absolute joy to listen to, especially their version of Jelly Roll Morton's 'King Porter Stomp' which takes them both back to the territory of Swing - a style of jazz they created, and a style of jazz that created the men they became, and the jazz that we know today.