This was a period, late in Gene Krupa's career, when he really wasn't up to much, or so some critics said. Whether that's fair or not is not for me to say. When Krupa appeared in the summer of 1965 at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City he only rated second billing to The Supremes. He didn't seem to care. The band he had was, with the exception of Eddie Shu, this one. If you were young and impressionable, you might be forgiven for thinking they played a lot of music. True enough, Krupa had his warhorses, and "Big Noise from Winnetka" likely followed him everywhere, as did "A Train" and "Drum Boogie." Krupa's taste for novelty in the later years of his life is perhaps best left to a wiser critic. He did not go through the motions, as anyone who witnessed his performances up close would say, nor did he do so here, perhaps a year or so later.

So much has been written about Krupa this space is surely better devoted to two of his exceptional sidemen, neither of whom are—or perhaps were—household names.