SKF NOTE: Thank you, John Shand, for this story about Gene Krupa meeting Steve Gadd. I did not know those two great musicians had met. I remember someone noticing how often great drummers who came of age after Krupa were touched my an encounter with, a kindess from, the man who put drummers on the map.
The Sydney Morning Herald
December 8, 2016
Steve Gadd: The drummer everybody wants
by John Shand
Gadd began rubbing shoulders with superstars early. His father regularly took him to the Ridge Crest Inn in Rochester, New York, to hear a stream of top-shelf jazz musicians. Among them was the great swing drummer Gene Krupa, with whom Gadd, still too small for a full-sized kit, played when he was about eight.
“We’d sit right next to the bandstand, so I could watch the drummers,” he recalls. “My parents took me into this place a lot, so we knew the lady that ran it, and got introduced to Gene Krupa. I’d brought my little set of drums in and we played together, and then he played my little drums. He was great.”
Scott K Fish 