Gene Krupa & His Orchestra

Gene Krupa & His Orchestra – Gene Krupa ’44’46 (1979/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:03 minutes | 701 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hep Records

During his time as a drummer with Benny Goodman, Krupa legally recorded a number of tracks under his own name twice (as Gene Krupa and His Chicagoans in November 1935 for Parlophone and in February 1936 as Gene Krupa’s Swing Band) with soloists such as Chu Berry, Vido Musso, Israel Crosby (for whom Krupa wrote “Blues for Israel”) and Roy Eldridge, including vocal numbers with Helen Ward, Irene Daye and Jerry Kruger. A few months after the spectacular Carnegie Hall concert, which took place in January 1938, Krupa left Goodman’s orchestra and formed his own big band.

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Gene Krupa & His Orchestra – What’s This? (1955/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:16 minutes | 740 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hep Records

Gene Krupa and His Orchestra, also Gene Krupa, His Drums & His Orchestra or Gene Krupa Orchestra for short, was a big band led by drummer Gene Krupa that existed from late 1938 to early 1943 and from mid-1944 to 1951.

Between 1941 and 1943, with the addition of trumpeter Roy Eldridge and vocalist Anita O’Day, the band enjoyed what seemed like its greatest successes with pop and swing numbers. In his solos, which Eldridge played in the high registers, for example, “in the lyrical processing” of “Rockin’ Chair” sounded the first traces of the coming bebop. “O’Day, on the other hand, impressed with her talent for scat singing with a hip, restrained phrasing of even the corniest material”

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