I first met Gene Krupa on one of my trips to go study with Roy Knapp. I used to go to the Panther Room in the Hotel Sherman, where Gene Krupa had his band there. I always found him to be very congenial. Whatever you wanted to do, great. He took time in between sets to come over and chat with me. I was just a kid. He'd buy me a drink. Of course it was soda then. No liquor. I was never a drinker anyway. But he took time to show me things. Then of course years later - not too much longer - I won the contest. He remembers me coming into the Hotel Sherman to catch him. That was the first time I met him. My first wife used to make an example of Gene Krupa. She said, "I'm married to a great drummer, Louie Bellson, but if you put on stage twenty drummers, include Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Jo Jones, Shelly Manne, J. C. Heard - twenty drummers up on stage, bingo! Your eyes are going to go right to Gene Krupa. " He was a master showman. He could make more out of [Bellson sings a rhythmic phrase ending in "BAM"] - hit that little cymbal, and the house would come down. When he did that thing with Buddy Rich, Buddy Rich would play a tremendous four-bar break [Bellson makes a whirring sound], Gene Krupa would go [Bellson again sings the rhythmic phrase ending in "BAM"], and the place would go crazy. And Buddy Rich would go, "Nahhhhhhhh. How'd you do that? " Anthony