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FRIDAY
December 04, 1998
 Gene Krupa: 1909 - 1973 I was thinking a lot about what was meant by the above quotation. Reading more about Gene Krupa I find he was a very humble and modest man, yet a fiery, charismatic performer. He was the total showman, yet had the technical excellence. He was totally immersed in the drums and would practice 6-7 hours a day, and studied with some of the best teachers of his time, Sanford Moeller and George Lawrence Stone. He truly respected the black drummers of the south side of Chicago and spent hours watching some of the greatest at the clubs. He had a reverence for Buddy Rich's technical genius, but Buddy Rich had a reverence for Gene Krupa as well. Thoughts On Drummers I guess I'm really learning a lot from this book (Drummin' Men) about how all the drummers of that time (the 30's & 40's) admired one another, and would learn from one another. I haven't gotten that lately from other drummers out in my local scene. Other drummers do come up to me and compliment me on my playing, but none of the better known drummers and instructors in the profession have come up to me, but I hear some of them HAVE been at the shows, which puzzles me. It's as if it's more competitive, minus the comaraderie. For a while, before I joined this group, I felt more of that comaraderie when I would sit in with some of the jazz musicians around town. Of course, I was always looking for gigs and networking. It was fun, yet very stressful, because you didn't know where or when your next gig would be. Now it's different with this band. We are very successful and very busy. Because of this, I am isolated from the music communities and too wrapped up with the band I'm in now. And I wonder if that's good or bad in regards to my personal drumming career. It's something that I need to define or get a hold of, because I AM in a very successful band, but my name doesn't seem to be getting around like I feel it should. I'm almost wondering if I should get my own promoter or publicist or something. I guess this is something I must do more research on... I checked out another one of my previous journal entries, May 19, 1998. This is the journal entry in which I poured out my soul concering the demons that have haunted me for years. It took me awhile, but I feel I'm beyond that now. I now have the confidence it takes to play music, and now I'm fine tuning and attempting to improve on the way I EXPRESS the music, in addition to improving my technical proficiency on the drums. Currently Reading:
Jim Chapin - Advanced Techniques for
Dave Weckl - Back To Basics (video) Dave Weckl - The Next Level (video)
Kiri Te Kanawa - Mozart Arias Chicago Sym. Orch. - Mahler Sym. No. 4 Carlos Rull 
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