Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Paging Dr. Aridog



This is the amazing 1938 Carnegie Hall performance, all 12+ minutes of it. Sure good to keep that blood pumping. The newsreel footage of this is a joy to watch as it shows the tuxedos and evening gowns groove to the tune.

The story of this concert is something. As I recall, this concert was in danger of laying a really big egg and Gene Krupa realized that something had to be done. The result? The drumming in this recording. That gave the musicians a shot of adrenaline.  Neither musicians nor audience members ever looked back after that.

5 comments:

  1. Another drum solo that reaches deep down inside you. How do some drummers do it?...drag up that jungle rhythm? From Krupa to Blakey, certain riffs just grab you...or at least they do me. No wonder when I was struggling as a young man to master Beethoven and Chopin, I discovered Frankie Carle and subsequently Boogie Woogie...and all was lost :-)) You needed music that banged the drums and let you bang the keyboard...my teachers didn't agree. They wanted Chopin's Revolutionary Étude...I wanted "Great Balls of Fire!"

    Good God, how did I survive the 60's...if you danced the entire piece, either one of those posted, your kidneys hurt. Oh, yeah, we had palliatives.... :-))

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  2. Someone once told me that most (classical) conductors were percussionists as the percussionists had to know what everyone it the orchestra was doing. Everyone else could just concentrate on their own little corner of the world.

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  3. I love Benny Goodman! You can't listen to this without dancing across the living room floor (and then laying there gasping like a beached guppy wondering if you should call 911).

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    1. As long as there is carpet on the floor so I can be comfortable!

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