Tuesday, June 24, 2008"Gin Krupa" Plays Drums in Montevideo
© 2008 Richard C. Rhodes
Many years (decades) ago, two associates and I had business in Montevideo, Uruguay. We took off from Washington, D.C. in the dead of winter. The Pam Am Boeing 707 had to have the wings de-iced before takeoff. In those days, the flight wandered around a bit getting to its destination. For example, the air mileage from D.C. to London is 3675 miles. The current air mileage to Monty is 5247. But, back when we flew there it was more like a 7,000 mile trip. As the plane droned on and on, I began to feel like I might never see my home again. It was my first trip out of the United States, since we really can't count Tijuana, Mexico as a foreign trip. We stopped in Panama City, then Santiago, Chile, where I bought a hand-pounded silver Zippo lighter case adorned with a silver Llama. And on to Buenos Aires, Argentina - and across town to another airport to board Pluna Airlines for the flight to Montevideo. During the endless hours of flying on the 707 over uninhabited mountains and small villages, we studied the Spanish booklet plucked from the seat pocket. Along with the usual greetings, we learned the most important phrase, "Una Cerveza, por favor."
I must have been absent from the fourth-grade geography class when they pointed out that if it is Winter in the U.S., it is Summer in South America. So, I got to use my first Spanish with the cab driver in Buenos Aires. "Muy caliente," I said knowingly. "Si. Muy." I was now an international linguist. I had taken French and German in school, but never a word of Spanish. We boarded Pluna, the official airline of Uruguay - and off we flew to Montevideo. Shortly after leveling off, the pilot came down the aisle with a tall glass of a dark-colored drink. We were hoping that it was iced-tea and not Rum. He chatted up the passengers and retreated to the cabin. Incidentally, as of April 2008, Pluna has had no accidents or incidents in its 70 year history. It probably was iced-tea. One night in Monty we went to a jazz club, with a quartet playing some contemporary jazz. I had studied jazz drumming on my own, using the Gene Krupa books and using his Slingerland "Gene Krupa" sticks (model 1A, as I recall). In grade school, I had a snare drum, a high-hat cymbal and a couple more cymbals in my room. In high school, I played drums and percussion in a marching band and the high-school orchestra, but had never played jazz drums in public. I had seen one live Gene Krupa concert. That night in Monty, we were drinking wine and it was going down at a pretty fast rate. I had just about finished my second bottle of wine. I seldom drank more than a couple of glasses, but there were extenuating circumstances on this trip that brought on anxiety and over-consumption of the pressing of the grapes. I only tell the story privately of the cause of that anxiety, even all these years later. It is in the top three of my far-fetched tales that are actually true. To this day, I cannot explain what I did next. I got up, and between fractured Spanish and gestures indicated to the head musician that I wanted to sit in on drums. He quickly agreed and at the end of the current selection, the drummer got up and waved me to his seat. I fell right in and was keeping a nice beat and felt like I almost knew what I was doing. Suddenly, the leader pointed to me. To take a solo? Surely, I would screw this up. But all those years of listening to Krupa and Buddy Rich on records and playing along, even on the solos, kicked in. I let loose with a drum solo that astounded even me. Where had that been hiding? As I finished the solo and the musicians prepared to resume playing, the leader pointed to me and shouted "Gin Krupa!" The audience applauded wildly. So, that is how "Gin" Krupa played one night in a small jazz club in Montevideo, Uruguay. I never again played jazz drums in public. Quit while you are ahead - and have an unblemished international reputation.
Richard C. Rhodes |