JazzLegends Update
“Gene Krupa: The Pictorial Life of a Jazz Legend” is now in the final proofreading stages and we hope to have word any moment from Warner Bros. Publications. One of the reasons for delay on this and several other Warners’ products is because this division of WB was just sold to the Alfred Publishing Company. When the dust settles, which should be soon, Warners/Alfred plans to resume their full slate of video/DVD productions. The good news is that in addition to our extensive work for Hudson Music, we will be doing some rather special DVD projects with Warners/Alfred, including the possibility of a commercial release, with added footage, of the famed “Championship Jazz” television pilot with Gene Krupa and The Dukes of Dixieland, now available from us on “The Champ.”
“Lionel Hampton:King of the Vibes,” our upcoming DVD tribute to the vibes president, will be released within the coming weeks by Hudson Music, and we will also make it available here. As previously mentioned, this is the first such project devoted solely to Hamp, and features footage through seven decades of swinging. We’re proud that our narrators are mallet legend Mike Mainieri, and in the section focusing on Hamp’s drumming, the one and only Steve Smith.
Our good colleague Paul Testa has come up with another real “find” that we will be offering here very shortly. In 1968, Benny Goodman hosted a gala that celebrated the 30th anniversary of the legendary Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. Many of the surviving players, including Gene, were in attendance that night and there was much media coverage of it. Paul has discovered many of the interviews done for radio broadcast that night, coupled with excerpts from the Carnegie Hall Concert itself. There was also a lot of jamming that went on that evening and we hope to be able to offer that on CD as well.
Most all of our regular visitors are aware that we are now offering all of our VHS videos on DVD, in the DVD-R format. Please keep in mind, however, that we will continue to issue everything on VHS as well as DVD.
Those net surfers out there know very well that Google is about the number one search engine out there, and that’s probably because they are about the best. Among the great programs they offer for those who have web sites like ours is called the “Google Ad Sense” program. This program automatically generates small ads that are appropriate to the page or pages surfers are viewing. In other words, on our pages that feature Gene Krupa merchandise, you’re likely to see ads for downloadable Krupa tunes, for Krupa items on e-bay, etc. Clicking on these ads, and there are many of them on most of our pages, really do help support us. No, no one has to buy anything. Just clicking on them helps keep us going, and who knows what other great stuff you might find?
Finally, please feel free at any time to ask us for something on CD, books, video or DVD that you might be looking for. We have many, many items that are not listed on the site and we do, by the way, have access to pretty much everything by most of the drumming greats. That includes, by the way, the famed Tony Williams project that was very briefly issued on laser disc in Japan in the 1980s. Take advantage of this and please e-mail us at DrumAlive@aol.com
In an interesting piece of business, we have found that the domain name–www.JazzLegends.com–is among the most valuable of its kind in the marketplace. Indeed, it’s “the only name to have in jazz.” We are considering changing the name of this site at some juncture to GeneKrupa.com (or dot org or dot biz), so if anyone out there knows anyone who would be interested in one of the great domain names of all time–JazzLegends.com–let us know.
Let us take this opportunity to thank our customers, friends and supporters for your continued kind words, encouragement, and of course, your orders. We hope, pray and trust that you will continue to keep us going.
God bless and keep swingin’
Bruce Klauber
Tags: book, dvd, gene krupa, lionel hampton, pictorial life of a jazz legend
