Jump, Jive, and Jail: the Pot Bust of Gene Krupa

At the height of the swing music era, jazz drummer and musical great Gene Krupa was caught up in a federal bust. He was used as a cautionary tale in America's First Drug War. Taken down in order to scare young people away from that serious and dire threat to America... jazz music.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Dude that you Elizabeth Dutton.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Dude, it's me.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I got a question for you, Elizabeth Dutton.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Zaron Burnett lay it on me.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You know, I know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
No, you do?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Okay, So you know how furries rubbed me the wrong way?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes, it's a fun way of putting it.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
And you know it's like that's a meat problem. That's
not them. Sure you know that's a meat problem. But
Marsberry on Instagram sent something that was forwarded to me,
and I feel like it was an active war, active war.
It was an aggressive thing to send.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
This on mars Berry's part to pass it.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Along because this is worse than a furry.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh wow, it's okay.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Since this story is from twenty twenty three, there's this
Japanese man who had a long haired collie suit made
for himself. Oh, which are there? It's called like a
rough colleiae, like the like lassie. So he spent more
than you know, like ten thousand euros, more than ten thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Dollars lifelike collie.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, okay, because he wanted to realize his dream of
transforming into a rough collie. His name is Toco.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
So he's out there looking like lassie.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Dude, I'm gonna show you these pictures. So Toko, he
like it took him two years. He went to this company,
zeppet zepp E.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
T Let me get a pen.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, I write it down. They create realistic costumes and
models for films, and so he was like, hey, make
me a Collie costume.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
You guys made the Predator. Can you get me a dog?

Speaker 3 (01:43):
He said, he's always wanted to quote since I was
a kid, I've always wanted to make over. Well, you know, son,
there are other ways. I when I'm wearing my suit,
I feel happy because my dream turns into reality. So
that's that's quote in Toco.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
There. I'm sure that sounds like far better.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And every now and then he goes out on the
street in this but he doesn't like to because.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Can gather out on the street, people.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Pull like there's this lady who pulls him around in
a cart, or he stands there like sits. People come
up and like take pictures and hug on him like postures.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
He's sitting like on his knees, hands in front of him.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh my, I'm showing you the picture right now. I'm
going to have him put this on the Instagram story.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
He's dragging him in the wagon.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, he's lay on his back showing for the belly rubs. Yeah.
So he he's got like a YouTube channel and you know,
the tiktoks and stuff. Everyone you know is fascinated by him. Me,
I'm repulsed. He doesn't tell about his.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Life or like, yeah, putting you in.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
It is so looking at these pictures, it's so uncomfortable. Why,
I don't know, it's a me problem.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
I didn't I'm I'm not suggesting that you're judging the man,
but I mean, why does it make you uncomfortable?

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Also, it's not just that he loves collies. He loves
malamutes and huskies and Golden Retrievers. And he's like, you know,
we're not even going to entertain that Querry. And he
said he's open to getting other suits.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
He's so he has other makeovers in mind, I guess.
But it's like, if you were to wear an outfit
that made you look like an animal, is there any
animal that you'd be like? That'd be kind of fun
if the suit was convinced none. So it's not about
the fur or the the scales or the feathers.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
I run hot, I would get so sweaty.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
We'll say it has absorbency on the inside and the cooling.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
System, and I don't like things touching me.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, let's say it also has like a lattice system,
so fairly it's floating.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
And I would I would be so irritated with myself.
You look at you, Elizabeth, You're so precious, You're so quirky.
Get out of here. I mean, if I could transform
into an actual animal, Okay, well, you never to return
to human form, that's.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
A different question. It's a totally different question.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
It is ridiculous. I'm written for Toco. No offense to
those who are only offenses to you. It's a problem, Yeah, exactly.
The only one who should be offended is.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
You, and that is what's happened you. That is what
is happening, right, Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yes, talking about smuggling drugs before we have I mean, naturally,
because some drug buster are just it's just strange fun Yeah,
And Okay, for instance, we've talked about when tough Guy
actor Robert Mitcham got busted because he was a jazz
loving reef for smoking. Havecat right? I remember that we
talked about Lord Buckley, the High Priest of Bebop, with

(04:42):
his free floating church of the High cosmic parties and
his misadventures with the law in LA in the forties
and fifties.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Then there was the Brothers of the Eternal Sunshine, the
former biker gang lost Sir for drug smugglers. Yep, There's
so many others we've covered. But because I know that
we both love a drug smuggling story, I got another
one for you. But today I wanted to pirouette on
this theme, tell you a story about it. Amateur drug
smuggling gone wrong. Oh no, Oh, that's kind of a

(05:09):
reach to call this a story of drug smuggling. Okay,
so but it is. That's exactly what happened. Drugs were smuggled,
busts were made, mistakes were made. What I'm saying is,
today I want to tell you a hep little tale
about some muggles smoking. Daddy Oho got caught flat footed
by the fuzz when the beat suddenly stopped. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a jazz and reefer story.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Baby, hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
How about the late great jazz drummer Jean Crouper.

Speaker 5 (05:34):
No, this is ridiculous, cry my podcast about absurd and

(05:59):
how ragees, capers, heists and cons.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Jazz hand jazz, listen jazz and over here.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
What do you know about Reefer Madness?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Like the film?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yea? Like the og film? Yeah, like I had to, like,
have you ever seen it?

Speaker 3 (06:24):
No? I you know now what I think about it.
I don't think I've ever seen it. I've seen it
as like a novelty, you know, like the posters and
such where people have it like on a T shirt, Like.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Right, so you smoke put.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Huh yeah, I'm quirky.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
So well, for purposes of research for this, I started
to watch it. But that film is unwatchable. Yeah, it's
so bad. It sucks. But the trailer is hilarious. So
I watched that a couple of times. Okay, and I
have some highlights from that for you. It opens with
this narrator soberly intoning these high school boys and girls
are having a hop at the local soda fountain. Innocently,

(07:03):
they dance innocent of a new and deadly menace lurking
behind closed doors. Now, then cut to a guy who
looks like he's tried to, like, I don't know, assassinate
frans Ferd Nuns. And this guy's like in the closet.
He looks like he's like Peter Laurie's connect right, and
he lights up a joint and then this gong strikes
that be foreign and then all of a sudden, like

(07:24):
the narrator comes back in marijuana, the burning weed with
its roots in hell right now, in case you're wondering
how bad the real danger might be in nineteen thirty eight,
the narrator warns viewers, in this film, you will see
the ease with which this vicious plant can be grown
in your neighbor's yard, rolled into harmless looking cigarettes hidden

(07:45):
in an innocent shoe or watchcase. Deserve That's not always,
because the music then shifts to violins and strings. Right
that passes like guy like tense? Oh no, not like
a kitchcock, like like he love yeah? Like oh, cut
to the lovers right exactly now, and then the narrator

(08:06):
comes back in with In this startling film, you will
see dopsters lore children to destruction. Now, later in the trailer,
the narrator warns mystery and Missus America and all the
ships at sea that smoking the soul destroying reefer, they
find a moment's pleasure. So he's talking about the couples
with the strings, right, So he cut to this thirties
couple like they're canoodling on the chesterfield and aka the sofa.

Speaker 5 (08:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
And later as these main dopesters listen to the main dopeter,
I guess basically he's listening to this girl played jazz
piano and he's puffing on the demon weed. Yeah, and
he's taking like real long polls on this like the
jazz cabbage, right, and he has this semi possessed look
on his face, like hey, like like a raving man,
like the way someone pictured madness in the nineteenth century

(08:49):
or I guess the early twentieth century. Right, So anyway
back to the narrator, Oh, he's talking over this raving
guy and the ultimate end of the marijuana addict hopeless insanity.
And then we see the same dopester repeating the stoned
out mantra to himself. Play faster, play faster, play play.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Faster, Yeah, that's exactly what happens when people smoke.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
We exactly, they can turn into little Peter Lourie's. Now
what I love is that the woman on the piano
puffing away also on like a giant hooter of her own. Yeah,
she isn't playing boogie woogie or like stride piano like
Fats Waller Jelly Roll Morgan, which would have been more appropriate. No,
she's playing and he's not playing like a Count Basie
or Benny Goodman, which would been really the music of
the time. She's playing like bar talk, like bella bar talk,

(09:33):
classical music, just really fast. She's jamming through this classical piece. Anyway,
this is the attitude around marijuana among the Straits in
nineteen thirties.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
They'd be like, now, witness the wine mom exactly, the
gummy after the tennis tournament.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Turn Grandpa onto pop for the first time, look at him,
giggle and smile. Now, let's just say the war did
not change how America's view of the demon marijuana was going. Right,
So as we started turning from isolationist America before World
War Two to like, oh, let's look at the international stage.
It's the country, we were like, oh, we're still afraid
of like all these foreign people. So they started demonizing

(10:12):
pot with all the same aspects. Before it was like,
oh it's blame Asia, let's blame Mexico. So that's the idea. No,
who terrified America of weed? Who was it? Two names, Elizabeth?
Two names names? Very good? Good guess though. No Hurst,
Harry j Anslinger we've talked about. Yeah, we talked about

(10:33):
Harry j Anslinger before. But first William Randolph Hurst.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Doing research for this, I wanted to see what the
contemporary commentary was, Like, what were William Randolph Hurst, like
peers saying about him instead of people looking back? Now,
what were they saying then? So, Elizabeth, I found some
old newspapers because I know you love that. I found
this political cartoon because I love that, and it kind
of said it all right. It's a critique of Hurst
yellow journalism. It's this lampoon of the scare campaigns that

(10:59):
he was like always trying to sell. In this case,
it was about reefer madness. So if you notice there's
his cartoon, there's an illustration of William Randolph first standing
hunched over a sales counter at like a drug store,
like he's the pharmacist, but more like a patent medicine man. Anyway,
So what is he offering? Great question to you. There's
a sign behind him and it reads dope journalism, Escape

(11:21):
truth and reality. Ask for my latest mixtures hypocrisy and
sophistry for every occasion thirty years experience editorials to produce
paralysis of thought. And then there's my favorite line. Right,
they're just hitting them, but below the sales line is
added this little added sign, like you know they'd hook
on signs like back in the day. So it's like

(11:41):
venom and hatred to kill labor unions endorsed by big industries. Right.
The cartoon is called The Man who Opposes the Sale
of Dope and by artist Art Young. Right yeah, right,
I thought so, Elizabeth. Here's what it looks like. Here's
the cartoon. Okay, yeah, yeah, right, So you see it's
like it's very early twentieth century illustration style but effective.

(12:03):
I mean, they did nail them with all the stuff. Well, anyway,
the cartoon was critical of two key threads in Hearst's
attack against cannabis. Right, because first it's the racist fear mongering, right,
the unquenchable capitalist degree. These are his two big right,
He's a fact at Elizabeth in your words, he was
violently wealthy, Yes he was, and he used his wealth
to do violence to the causes that he despised and

(12:25):
personally opposed, for instance, marijuana aka cannabis. Now keep in mind,
William Randolph Hurst is why we call it marijuana. Oh really, Yes,
he was a newspaper publisher, right, so he was able
to shape narratives and craft with the American minds were
like feeding on and so well, let me put it
this way. What does the newspaper publisher require to make

(12:46):
his money ad sales? Well, yes, but at the most
basic level paper, Yeah, like being an industrialist, Hirst owned
paper companies. He was big in the lumber business, which
also meant he saw industrial hemp as a threat. He's
a cheap fiber and if it reached industrial scales, which
it looked like it was about to do, he saw
that as a threat to him as a lumber bearer.

(13:07):
So what does a newspaper man need to make his money? Also? Well,
obviously news and sometimes if there isn't a sort of
news that would sell papers, a cunning newspaperman like him,
he invents it. Yeah, he makes it up. He's like, eh,
this is happening. Maybe I don't know what's happening. So
he pushes it, and he events whole serieses of news
stories see the Spanish American War. But then in this

(13:28):
case he does like the starting nineteen fourteen, he starts
going against pot. Takes about twenty years to get it
to where it's illegal in the country, but he just
keeps beating this drum and creates a moral panic, just
a one man moral panic.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Now, well, I don't want to like, I don't want
to mislead you. Marijuana was an accurate word that was
used in Mexico. It's in Spanish speaking places in the Southwest,
but most Americans called it cannabis at the time. Yeah,
and then he introduced it as marijuana, so it would
become sound foreign and exotic and scary.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Wells, Peter Talk said, some call it marijuana.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
But also he was, I mean, we think of it.
This is like, you know, in reggae terms, right, they
think of Rastafari as he had him where Hurst had
most Americans. Well, here's a quote from one of his
newspapers in nineteen twenty three, in a Hearst newspaper reported, quote,
marijuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke
marijuana cigarettes for a month, and what was once your

(14:23):
brain will be nothing but a storehouse for horrid specters.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
That's in the newspaper, right, This is your brain on drugs.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Total.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, totally. So with this level of fear mongering didn't
suffice to scare America. Hearst Newspapers then upped the foreign
exotic angle. So in nineteen twenty eight he comes back
with his papers have another story. Marijuana was known in
India as the murder drug. It was common for a
man to quote, catch up a knife and run through
the streets, hacking and killing everyone he encountered.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm sorry, but none of their descriptions match up with
what I know of what people who are high on
we behave, Like.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Anyone saw anyone ever smoked pop. They're like, I'm sorry,
this discussion accord. No. So then we have the second
man on the scene who worked just as hard to
transform cannabis into marijuana and birth a full blown nationwide
moral panic. His name was Harry j Ensling. Yeah right now,
his wife's uncle gets him a job at the Treasury
Department right now. You see, he could do that because

(15:20):
his wife's uncle was Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury. Okay, yeah,
So anyway, once he hopscotched off some old fashioned nepotism
and landed himself a cushy spot in federal employment, unqualified
as he was, an slinger, eventually was named the first
director of the Federal Bureau of the Narcotics. We got
a new department. We're gonna start.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
How about this guy. You know what, it's the more
things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
So at this point he's like, he's the man who
said to himself, you know what, mister Hurst, I don't
think you're racist enough. I'm not kidding. He didn't actually
say that, but he could have. Yeah, So he saw
what Hurst is trying to do, and he decided I
can do that from the federal law enforcement level. So
he pushes to rebrand cannabis as marijuana, and he very

(16:07):
specifically does this to associate cannabis now. But the farmers
in the Pacific Northwest are pushing to make it industrial.
But the Mexican dope smokers at the border that the
police are like writing stories about in the early twenties.
So we know this is the case because Hinsluinger once said,
and I quote, there are one hundred thousand total marijuana
smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos,

(16:30):
and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing results from
marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual
relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others. Entertainers. I think that's
code for Jewish. I think that's what that is. Oh

(16:52):
you think, yeah, I think that's what that is. I
don't know. But also for actors, you know, just musicians
is generally like oh yeah, like you know, if you're
a Polish saxophone, you get thrown in there. So it's
all right there, So the seeds of a moral panic
are taking root. Right, And then I read through the
transcripts of Harry j Anslinger's congressional testimony when he was
waging his war to make cannabis illegal. And it took

(17:14):
that because it took him a while, took him until
nineteen thirty seven, and then they passed the marijuana taxac boom.
It's illegal. But you'll see that. Well, let's have some
fun with this, Elizabeth, I prepared some selections for us
to ready. You'll be Harry j Annslinger, and I will
be every other Congressman on the House in Ways and
Means to this little Yeah no, Elizabeth, you're down to
do some dramatic recreations. I am producer d if you'd

(17:36):
be so kind.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Mister Chairman. My name is Harry j Ann Slinger. I
am a Commissioner of Narcotics in the Bureau of Narcotics
in the Treasury Department, Mister Chairman, and distinguished members of
the Ways and Means Committee. It is known as cannabis,
cannabis americana, or cannabis sativa. Marijuana is the Mexican term

(18:12):
for cannabis indica. He's good, he knows. We seem to
have adopted the Mexican terminology. We call it marijuana, which
means good feeling. In the underworld, it is referred to
by such colorful colloquial names as reefer, muggles, Indian, hey,
hot hay, and weed.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Sorry, I gotta stop out our drama for a second.
Those who love the names for pot, like there are
so many silly names for pot, but the pot Yeah, hot, Hey,
I have never ever heard.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
I heard that, But I'm gonna go down to the
harbor side dispensary and ask for some hot Hey.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, you guys got the good Indian Hey, I don't
want that Indian head. I mean, like dormay, I'm always
asking for like, you guys got any acapucu gold? How
about the Mawi? They're like starts, not the nineteen seventies.
I'm like, all right, man, you guys got me that.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I'm really really impressed with myself for reading this without
my glasses on.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Doing really well. All right, I got one more for
you here you go.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Okay, mister Anslinger.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
I want to be certain what this is. Is this
the same weed that grows wild in some of our
western states, which is sometimes called the loco weed.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
No, sir, that is another family.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
That is also a harriful drug producing weed.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Is it not? Not? To my knowledge, it is not
used by humans.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
In what particular sections? Does this weed grow wild.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
In almost every state in the Union today?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Why are you describing as a plant which has is
a rather large flower, No.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Sir, a very small flower.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
It is not Indian help.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
It is Indian help. We have some specimens here when.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Was this brought to your attention as being a menace among.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Our own people about ten years ago?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Why did you wait until on nineteen thirty seven to
bring in a recommendation of this.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Con Ten years ago, we only heard about it throughout
the Southwest. It's only in the last few years that
it's become a national menace. It has grown like wildfire,
but it has only become a national menace in the
last three years.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
So you can kind of hear the tones, right, He's
having to sell it to these guys. They want to
believe them, but they're like, I'm not hearing it.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Sir, I'm just a simple coak.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, you're talking about flowers in Mexico.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, Mexican fly And I love that. That one's not
for human like news. But he what the cows are
out there?

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Well, there's actually not it. It's interesting you bring that
up because this is about there's a whole thing about
hemp seeds being fed to birds, and Harry j Anslinger
was really doubtful that he was super dubious about feeding
hempseeds to bird because this is what I'm talking about
industrial hemp. There was a bunch of regulatory logistics that
had to be worked out if they were going to
prohibit pot because they had industrial hemp, and all these
farmers in Midwest and Pasific Northwest were like, wait, I

(20:56):
grow that for fibers and for seed oil, and we
send it to China.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, the Omega three, yes exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
So that just getting into that and he's like, no, no,
kill all that right, So then they're like, well, what
about can we still sell it as bird feed? And
they're like well. Here in the Conference on Cannabis Atiba
and the Treasury Building on January fourteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
Harry ja Anslinger gets called in to testify about all
this new marijuana prohibition laws that they're drafting would pass
later in the year. So let's do some more drama.

(21:22):
Elizabe Okay, yeah, you're Harry ja Anslinger again. Great, and
I will be the various commissioners producer d if you will.
But that doesn't satisfy commission Anslinger because potentially every seed
is horrifle.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Our experience has been that in almost every large seizure made,
we've got a large quantity of seed from the defendant
for growing purposes.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
What would happen if we proscribed the use of seed
for bird seed.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Doctor Munch told me it would stop the birds from singing.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Is help seed indispensable from birds sea? If Commission Anslinger
would agree to cut out bird seed, it would certainly
up the bill and enforcement.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Uh can they prove the the birds need this food?

Speaker 2 (22:02):
I just love that He's like, I don't even.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Want to feed these birds will stop singing they got worms?
But then how why aren't the birds getting jazzy?

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Exactly right? He doesn't connect, Elizabeth, And you know this
guy does not care about bird song or anyway enough
about Harry j Anslinger and the irrational hatred of bird
seed and his racist war against pot. Because let's take
a little break. Okay, after this break, we're gonna get
into the crime with the bust of the jazz legend.
My man friend of the show, Jean Crouper. Elizabeth, we're back. Hey,

(22:52):
sorry to have to lay all that drama in your
lap after cold read right, Spontaneous Theater is one of
America's great biggots.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
It was really great. I didn't really get a chance
to like workshop a void.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, exactly. Well, for the rest of this episode, you
will not have to embody any of America's great bigots.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, next stop the swing era, right, and we get
to know my man, Jean Krupa. What do you know
about Jen Crippy? You know you are you familiar with him?
Great drummer, right, yeah, Bennie Goodman's drummer. He was the
man who played the drums on the big nineteen thirty
seven thirty eight hit, the biggest hit, Benny Goodman's biggest hit,
sing Sing Sing, yeah, right, and that's when it starts
with the drums all going crazy exactly. Krupa was like
the first true celebrity drummers. I mean, there was Chick

(23:34):
Web before him. There were drummers who were known in
jazz and in music, but he was like inter like
nationally and internationally known.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, that man could swing.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Oh my goodness, yes, Elizabeth. Now, Krupa came right along
right when the culture catches up to jazz, right when
jazz becomes like it's more. You know, it starts in
New Orleans and Storyville, but now by the thirties it's
it's gonna be in Carnegie Hall. Yeah, right, So he
basically invents what we can also think of his modern
rock drumming I mean like Keith Moon from The Who,
John bonifinm led Zeppelin, Dave Grohl from Nirvana. None of

(24:03):
these guys would be who they are without like a
Charlie Watts, the late Charlie Watts, thank you very much. Right.
So like although really hard playing and tight playing drummers,
the jazzy drummers, they all sing his praises right because
the guy looks single handedly his playing on sing sing
sing made the drum solo a serious thing of music,
right right.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
There's there's a direct line to John Bonham in all
that way.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, exactly with the drum solo now, but man. Gene
Krupa was born Eugene Bertram Krupa on January fifteenth, nineteen
oh nine. Baby boy and a family of nine kids.
Raised in Chicago, proud Polish family in the classic move
from back in the day. Since he was the youngest
boy in a Catholic family, what did that mean? He
went off to college to become a priest. Yeah, so

(24:48):
after a year he decided he didn't want to be
a priest, he said. He became a professional musician. Sure,
his family loved that. Yeah, So specifically he became a
jazz drummer so that.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
You see the battery even.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
No one can see. Well, maybe that's good, honey. But
the guy, I mean Krupa, he had the rhythm in
him and he gotta let it out right. So he
gigged around Chicago the nineteen twenties playing for like this
is the al Capone era Chicago gangsters or his audience
as well as it, you know, the hip and the
wealthy of Prohibition and then the working class out to
have a good time. So his early jazz influences were

(25:21):
men like Big Spider Beck. Also, he's like a perfect
example of the Chicago jazz sound at the time. Then
there's also other local guys like Tubby Hall and Zuddy Singleton.
Also not to mention Jimmy Condon and Baby Dots. Like,
what are up with these names?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
I will your word for it.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
I love jazz names like I love pot names. Right,
they're all the gress like brother Jack McDuff, that's one
of my favorite Groove Hall.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
That's a guy name.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, these are all jazz guys, like Illinois Jack Kat
cannonball Adderly Dizzy Gillespie is my favorite though, was Rossan
Roland Kirk. You know, he had a dream. His name
is Roland Kirk, right, and he has this dream that
he's playing before a crowd a huge stadium and they're
all chanuting Rassan Raissan Raissan. After he is like triumphant

(26:09):
solo and he's like, oh man, this is awesome. I
love this. I love these people. He wakes up. He
calls his manager and he goes, all right, how do
I legally change my name? And he tries to legally
change his name to Raissan and he does. He changes
his name to Rassan.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Oh, I didn't know that that's how he got his name, O.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Totally, he just had a dream decided I got to
change my name. So he does it. But then legally
he can't change his name and get his old royalties
in his name, so he then has to change his
name back, but he doesn't want to change it back,
so he changes his name to Roland Raissan Kirk or
Rassan Roland Kirk.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, I love that he has a dream, like it's
such a jazz story. So anyway back to the jazz.
Nineteen thirty four, Jean Croupa joins Benny Goodman's band. Right
the next year, in thirty five, he walks into a
recording studio, lays down his first tracks on Wax and
first time with the band. Almost instantly, gen Krupa becomes
a star of the show. Yeah, first time people hear him, like,
who is that? His drums are just that differ.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
It's not like anything else. Yeah, exactly that.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
You love that. I mean, you're better with music than
I am. The sound of his drums were also something
he did. As you said, nobody like him before he
played melodies on the drum skins.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
They actually started making tunable drumskins because of him, right,
so you could make play more melodies. Yeah, that's how
good he was. He turned. Also, he was the guy
who made the standard drum kit after him. Everybody's like, oh,
that's the drum kit I want.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Like you look at like Fred Astaire. He was like
a Fred Astaire, Yes, percussionist, like you could see it
dancing like you think about like the hard driving drumming
of John bonham Er. I always think about Keith Moon
sounds like someone kind of falling tumbling down the stairs,
totally tripping around, but they getting up me I'm okay.
And so it's the the the animation, the life that

(27:50):
he brought into percussion is incredible because.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
You're spot on. He was. He was wild. I mean,
that's really the word for it. H New York Times
quoted him in their obituary for him saying quote, I've
succeeded in doing two things. I made the drummer the
high priced guy, and I was able to project enough
so that people were drawn to jazz. He was just loud. Yeah, yeah,
So gene Gruppa wasn't just a phenomenal drummer. He was
also incredible once in a generation showman. I mean, the

(28:14):
guy like as you kind of pointed out, but he
would like sit hunched over his drums. He'd curl around them.
Right then as he starts playing, his hair comes loose,
and he was like a handsome guy, and the girls
would love, how do you have like a lock of
hair dangling over his eye and he's just dancing there, yea,
And more hair gets comes loose of like his like
real cream or whatever he's wearing. And then as he
continues playing his solo, his body would like unfurl like

(28:35):
a blossom. Right then all of a sudden, he's just
like stretching into taking like the sunlight, and he turns
in like kind of like how a flowers like in
this explosion of beauty, that'd be him, but with sound, right,
So then all of a sudden you got these arms
going everywhere and he just it was insane. It's just
like this visually and musically the same thing. They're both
going wild. Yeah, nobody had seen this exactly totally. So

(28:58):
by thineteen thirty eight, Benny Goodman's band is now the
biggest band in jazz. Everybody, they're the coolest. This is
bad the way jazz is the coolest music in America,
which makes it the coolest music going in the world.
So they're now the best band in the coolest music
in the world. That same year, in January nineteen thirty eight,
the band plays this epically famous show at Carnegie Hall. Right,
it's the peak of jazz's climb into the culture. And

(29:20):
like you know, I said, it starts in Storyville, New Orleans,
and then boom, they're in Carnegie Hall. Because the longest
time it was disparaged, it wasn't called real music. All
this stuff. Now it's on Carnegie Hall. Boom. From Noline
to Carnegiall. Now, after this incredible show, their version of
Sing Sing Sing, which if you can go to YouTube
and just watch Sing Sing Sing Live nineteen thirty eight.
Benny Goodman. Yeah, Carnegie Hall. It's incredible. But Benny Goodman

(29:43):
as a bandleader not exactly a warm and friendly guy. No, yeah,
not known to be uh what you call like not chunny? Yes, no,
not at all. So Krupo was like, you know what,
I'm a star, I'm out of here. He got tired
of button heads with him. Yeah, so he starts his
own big band. He gets some good players, he gets
like Roy Eldrie, He gets a talented singer named Anita O'Day.
He starts touring. The people love it. They're like, oh,

(30:05):
this is great. They got rid of that dead way
Benny Goodman. No, not really. But the jazz hebcats and
the swing kids they're still going kookie for his new band, right,
because of course they did. He's Kroupa, right. It's like
so basically now as the thirties giveaway to the forties
and swing is still like the thing. Jane Croupa is
up there at the mountaintop Elizabeth and well you know
what that means. There's nowhere else to.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Go but where down, down, down.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Nineteen forty two, rolls around gravity, grabs hold of Jane Croupa,
gives a good, hard yank. Interestingly, he has a lot happened.
He gets divorced, he gets busted. It's a bad Actually
it's more than one calendar year, yeah, but it's one
year of time anyway. Interestingly, he gets busted in where
San Francisco. Oh you don't see that coming, he len

(30:50):
me brust it. He was like, oh, so in nineteen
forty two, it's the war years. So World War two
is kicking right. That means for a professional band leader
who's nowhere near the front, the war is still touching
him directly. Because for Krupa, he keeps losing musicians when
they get drafted, right, and he's also got it's really
hard to you know, keep people on the road. And
then the people show up and they're like desperate, and

(31:13):
people a little tense. There's fights, it's a lot, and
then like they're having to pay cabaret taxes and cabaret
card fees. It's like a whole deal. So he's constantly
having to replace band members as his primary challenge though,
but he's making it work. Nineteen forty two he's still
king a swing. Everybody is like excited to see him,
and like I'm trying to say, these kids, they would
stand hard for their jazz heroes, Like I just imagine

(31:36):
how they did for the Beatles. They do that for Krupa,
just a little bit less because they're wearing all wool.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So at this point, well, his manager, lose Zito, he
tells this one story. He says, and I quote, no
one goes near Gene for at least half an hour
after stage show. He's completely exhausted and soaked to the skin.
So you make sure that nobody bothers the star. That's
how hard he plays. I mean, he's like playing like

(32:03):
like a like a hockey player sweats in a game, right,
But as a jazz drummer.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
It's like us when it's hot and we don't have
any here in the studio.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
And oh yeah because the noise, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
And then we're just wiped out. We're like, don't talk
to me.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I'm like, give me my towel, my robe.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Yeah, I just roll away down the hill.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Ye're just so so the manager, Louzito. He also had
another little story explaining like what Genekoper would do when
he came off the stage, just dripping exhausted, he said,
and I quote, as he comes off the stage, he's
wrapped in a heavy bathroom. In the dressing room, he undresses,
is wrapped in heavy bath towels, and he rests until

(32:43):
completely dry. Then he showers and gets a rub down,
nice routine everything. Typically, his wife Ethel would have traveled
with him. She liked to be near Gene. He liked
her to be near him, but but she didn't like
how his fans would go so crazy over him and
scream and at Cray Wild and so forth. She was
a more of a demure, quiet lady. And she also
liked to, you know, be there to keep the fans

(33:04):
from slipping into his hotel room. Yeah, right, well that anyway,
on that leg of the West Coast tour, she wasn't
there in San Francisco for the show. The couple was
separated at the time. Technically they had divorced the year earlier,
but they were still in contact and they're trying to
make it work. It was like, does this gotta take
Maybe we could like undo this, like they were like, anyway.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
It's like the life of a jazz musician.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Who's blown up. Nobody sees the jazz drummer becoming world
famous stars. She's I married the drummer. I thought I
was good. So it basically also didn't help though, Like
when they were trying to get back together, when the
tabloids and fan magazines would catch him like out with
like the hottest starlet at the time, Lana Turner, snap
a photo put on the magazine. His wife's like, how

(33:47):
hard are you trying? Right?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Exactly?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
So also, life on the road is not easy. I mean,
I'm not trying to excuse any infidelities. I'm not talking
about that. That's between the married couple. I just been
life on the road, like eating, are you?

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Exactly. Just Kroupa put it that life was so full
of greasy spoons and bad food you yearned for a
night off, and when you got it off, you get
so drunk you wouldn't know what was going on anyway.
I used to look at the lighted windows of the
houses and yearn for that same kind of life.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right, So this is not a guy who's going He's
crazy on stage but not crazy off stage, right, So
KINDI he drinks hard, but he's like the guy who
contemplated becoming a priest, but he couldn't say no to
the siren calls, the jazz music. Right, So this is
not to say he wasn't living the good life, Elizabeth.
Krupa most certainly was when he rolled into the Saint
Francis Hotel in San Francisco. He brought with him three

(34:39):
full trunks of custom clothing. Oh wow, he had fifteen
different camel hair coats.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
God, could you imagine this? I'd love to see them.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
He had a vallet, you know, personal valet or vallet
to just to handle his clothing, dressing him and doing
the maintenance of his clothing. More on that personal vallette later,
but anyways, January twenty at nineteen forty three, this headline
breaks out dateline, San Francisco, January twentieth, nineteen forty three.
Jean Krupa is arrested. He denies he sent boy to

(35:10):
get marijuana cigarettes. Oh boy, yeah, so let's back out.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves in order to truly
dive into this scene. Elizabeth, I'd like you to close
your eyes, Lazic, like you to picture it. It's January eighteenth,
nineteen forty three. The world is at war headline scream
about German tank advances in Europe and the bloody trail

(35:31):
of the island topping marines in the Pacific. At the moment,
you don't want to think about all those horrors. Instead,
you just want to hear some hot, hot jazz from
the wildest band leader in the land, mister Jean Crouper.
At the moment, he's in San Francisco, which coincidentally is
where you work as a hat check girl at the
Golden Gate Theater, and you are beside yourself that right now,

(35:53):
Jean Crupa and his swing band are playing a week
of shows at the Golden Gate Theater. You've watched breathlessly
night after night as the crowd rises to thunderous applause
when the show concludes with his climactic drum solo, and
tonight it was no different. As soon as the show
is over, the crowd erupts in tremendous applause, and you
watch the band leaders. He bounds off stage. He's so

(36:16):
wet with sweat, he looks like he just took a
shower in his clothes. He brushes past you where you
lurk backstage, and he wets your shoulder as he passes.
What a show he puts on, you think to yourself.
As Krupa brushes by, he gives you a friendly smile,
even though he looks exhausted. You turn and watch him go,
and that's when you spot the same suspicious men also

(36:38):
lurking around backstage you saw earlier. There's now three of them.
They follow Krupa to his dressing room. The door opens,
he goes in, The three men go in, and his
personal valet follows them. All the door shuts. A moment passes,
then the door opens. You see the personal valet step out.
He looks around. He seems worried, but also a little confused.

(37:00):
He's young, perhaps out of his depth. He sees you
watching him, but you quickly look away, and then you
look back. When the dressing room door opens again, you
spot Gene Krupa. He's now wearing a robe, but he's
passion faced. He looks like someone just told him he
has just days to live. He speaks with his personal
valet in whispered tones. You can't hear what they say,

(37:20):
but you do see the personal valet nod and then
turn to go in a rush. You watch as he
tries to slyly walk off backstage, pass the passers by.
You also spot the third suspicious man as he turns
and follows the kid out the stage door. That's when
you turn back, not wanting any trouble because with the
war on and all the reports of enemy saboteurs, you

(37:41):
decide to mind your own business. These guys seem like Feds.
You go back to the hat check stand. Now the
show's o where people will want their hats and coats.
But you're still super curious what made Gene Crouple look
like his life just ended? Well, Elizabeth, Boom, there you go.
You just witnessed the first act of the bust of
Gene Krupa. After these messages, we will get back to

(38:04):
see how justice plays out for the jazz man. Elizabeth,

(38:27):
how we swinging the jam on this one's sister, Claude?

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Oh my goodness, I am digging it, daddy O.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Let's get back to it as we covered thanks to
William Randolph Hurst causing a nationwide moral panic about buddy cannabis,
which his paper's renamed marijuana to make it sound foreign
and scary in order for him to make profits selling
papers covering the moral panic while also protecting his profits
as a lumber baron.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
In the transcript she had me read, I like, how
it's spelled of.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, marijuana, so people would say it the j being
that's new to them, so they're like, just spell it
English style. Spell how you want people to say it.
So well, also I forgot that. Obviously there's Harry ja Anslinger.
We cannot forget about him, the nepotism higher who becomes
the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who

(39:14):
then joins hers for the fight against pot and also
adds in his flavor of racism. Right, So back to
the jazz age craziness. Now, obviously most of this is
aimed at the black jazz men, right, that's where they
really would like to bust, and they're having some success.
They've been the harassing. They're about to really drive Billie
Holiday absolutely into a hospital. So there's they're not just

(39:35):
focusing on him. But if they could get a cautionary
tale to show these white kids where the demon weed
will lead you, that would be ideal. Enter gene Krupa.
So the Federal narks basically they wanted to bust the
coolest men in the world. That's who the white jazz
men were, the jazz kids that they were trying to
communicate with through the bust. So they're like, well, who's

(39:57):
the coolest him. So this author, David Solomon, he framed
in his book The Marijuana Papers, that the Bureau of Narcotics,
the director Harry Janslinger, he used his position in government
and his authority as an expert in the field to
spread all sorts of wildly incorrect propaganda. But the American
press were like, well, he's an expert, so they would
just eagerly and uncritically report his quotes, and so it

(40:19):
becomes the record. Then when you go to Congress, you
can then quote yourself in the paper. Right, it's a cycle,
it's ridiculous. So they're reasonably repeating whatever he says about
satanically destructive drug right that I put that in the
paper should be capitalized satan. So anyway, basically the press
functioned at his megaphone. So that's how jazz music and
the craze, swing kids and musicians, they all get a

(40:40):
target on their backs because especially the man they revere
Gene Krupa, it's the antipop paranoia. Right, So as Solomon
puts it in his book, and I quote the American public,
fed by this steady stream of anti marijuana propaganda, had
reason to believe much of what it read. The evidence
was right before them. Swing music and its culture appeared
to embody all of the dangers of the drug published

(41:02):
in the press. One only had to listen to the
hot tom tom rhythms of Benny Goodman's sing, sing, sing,
or watch the uncontrolled antics of a jitterbug trucking on
the dance floor as proof that something had taken hold
of American youth. It was easy to blame the marijuana menace.
So there you go, that's the tone the marijuana menas.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Now, comically, the jazz guys are putting out songs that
they are like the Chant of the Weed, or there's
Texas Tea Party. There's another song called reefer Man. I mean,
so they're able to quote from these songs in the
newspaper and then use that to scare people with like
jazz is clearly the devil's own music.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
So, Elizabeth, the whispers were in the wind right those
who were listening, they knew the FEDS would eventually find
the perfect person to frame as their cautionary tale. In fact,
Downbeat magazine tried to warn the community in nineteen thirty eight.
The magazine wrote, and I quote one of these days,
say those close to the situation, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation will investigate the claim that the marijuana weed is

(42:03):
promiscuously used and smoked by players of swing music. The
idea that weed, which is supposed to have first been
taken hold of by low down musicians and Harlem dives,
is now spreading to the bigger bands, where instrumentalists now
use it to emit the wild abandoned rhythms which comprise
swing music, is said to be arousing interest at Ja

(42:24):
Eggar Hoover's headquarters. Whether it is true or not, the
FBI is convinced that there is a good deal to
the rumors which they have heard, and they are planning
an investigation allegedly which may one day treat the US
to an expose which will rock the music world. It's
all over the place, all right, but it was kind

(42:44):
of a war, you do hear, though subtly always like
the Harlem Dives. Yeah, the abandoned rhythms of like jungle
rhythms from the dark part of Africa, you know, right. Anyway,
finally they can get their target. The Fateful Day comes
five years later, nineteen forty three, in the Golden Gate
Theater in San Francisco. What's interesting to me is how
when Jan Croupa gets popped for pot possession, he's arrested

(43:06):
by federal agents. Yeah, and then he's not brought up
on federal charges. Instead, he's handed over to the San
Francisco police like they're here. Really, you make a show
of him. We know, you guys rough people up. Yeah.
San Franisco police at the time were known for being
head beaters.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
That's at the same time that they were busting a
little bit later where they busted William Biwalda for shaking
the Big Gold's hand exactly.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
The San Francisco police were known as like some tough
Irish cops at this point. Yeah, so they didn't go
for this nonsense. Well you're smoking the pot, hey, you
know so.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
The San Francisco press was only also happy to help so,
because make no mistake, Jean Crupa getting busted for pot
was big news in nineteen forty three.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
He got a Hurst paper up in there.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Yes you do, thank you very much. San Francisco Examiner
reported on the arrival of Jean Croupa in town on
January fourteenth. There's plenty of excitement going on at the
Golden Gate. Jean Crupa's band is hitting the deck and
it hits like lightning. That's nineteen forty three, January fourteenth.
They also wanted to like hype this rare showman, so

(44:06):
the Hearst newspaper puts in glowing terms, telsol headed drummer Krupa,
who sits like an affable spider in his web of drums,
making his two arms act like six, is an authentic
jazz artist, which is a rare thing for a white musician.
Oh it's little tail in that one. Now. The smash
cut to one week later, January twenty first, the same

(44:26):
Hurst newspaper, San Franciso Examiner gleefully reports on the front
page with a quote Gene Krupa linked to dope case.
So they're making the profits on the way up and
the way it. Don't really care exactly. The opening sentence
gets right to it quote idol of countless young jitterbugs
throughout the nation. Gene Krupa noted swing drummer and bandleader

(44:49):
was arrested here last night by federal narcotics agents on
charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by
permitting a seventeen year old boy to transport narcotic Yeah,
so they really have. They got a story that's going
to sell some papers at this point. Right. So the
other new paper of this city, the major paper of
the city, San Francisco Chronicle, the one you like, I

(45:11):
went with a slightly more prosaic headline. They went with
Gene Kruppa arrested here in juvenile dope case. You don't
even quite know what's going on in that headline is
the dope case? Young? Are we waiting for the dope
case to mature? So, Elizabeth, back then there was no
different than today. The ugly allegations of drugs and kids

(45:31):
and the devil's own music made this small time bust
into a big time national news story. Everyone got to
speculate what's Gene Grupa doing with kids in San Francisco
and drugs? So most of the stories are like dope
and delinquency, right, That's what they really pushed. So what
doesn't get widely reported is that there are no charges
against gen Krupa, for possession of narcotics or for drug use,

(45:51):
any of that. It's just delinquency of a minor, which
is a much uglier term in the press. So rather
than read some more moral panic news stories, Elizabeth, let's
hear Gene Croupa's version of It's much better than the
other nonsense. Here's a Croupa tells the story of his
potbust and how his young valete got him pinched. And
I quote, by then, I was a glamour boy, fifteen

(46:14):
camel hair coats, three trunks around me all the time.
He couldn't think what to get me. Finally he thought, gee,
I'll get Jean some grass. At that time, California was
hot as a pistol. You could park your car for
a bottle of beerry get arrested. So we had a
rough time getting the stuff. He probably shot his mouth
off a little. I'm getting this for the greatest guy
in the world, Gene Croupa. So the kid was going

(46:35):
around La the city they were, and before they went
to San Francisco, and he was trying to get pot
for Jean Crupa, because that's where the kid got hired,
was in La just before they came to San Francisco
because it is like basically his first day on the job.
So I'll tell you more about him in a second.
The rest of the story from Croupa we will get
from his lawyer. And this is how the lawyer wrote

(46:56):
in his memoir years later. He says, this is Krupa's talk,
and I quote, I wouldn't call you master. I don't
know a damn thing about this caper. First time I
pick up on the fact it's marijuana that's got them
bugged is when the fuzz laid the story on me
after they dropped the net on Johnny. They tell me
he picked up the muggles in my suite, and I
come all un zipped. That's a scene. I don't dig.

(47:18):
Jake te goofballs, Benny all that kind of funny quick energy.
I don't need it. I got me. That's plenty. If
the kid had muggles, I sure don't know where he
got it.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Oh my god, it's like, excuse me, Stewardess, I speak jazz, right,
So goofballs.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
What's the real story here? Like, just who was his
personal valet? Was he legit? Was he a fed plant
there to get.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Crippa stitched out a hapless intern.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Was he a hapless intern? Good read kid? So Kripa,
as I said, barely knew him. His name was John Patiochos.
He was twenty years old. He was one of those
jitterbug kids. He lived for swing music. Yeah, he played
drums himself. He idolized Krupa. Wait, he was twenty twenty
years old, sad at the seventeen. Yes, so he was
not a minor. There was no delinquency of a minor.

(48:04):
So he graduated high school back in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
And then he like he was all about that jazz, right,
So he jitterbugged his way over to New York. And
then he was like, oh, I gotta go high tail
on my way over to Chicago. And then he kept,
you know, like swing bop dancing over to La working
as an usher at the Palladium Theater in La. This
excitable kid strikes up a friendship with Krupa's personal valet,

(48:25):
who's also a young man. And while the band is
playing a series of shows there like two weeks of shows, right,
So at this point World War two is kicking right,
It's in full bloody flourished.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
The whole show in LA at this time at.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
The Palladium Theater. It's a crazy right be amazing swing.
So Krupa's personal vallet. He also said, young man, he
gets drafted, and he gets his drafted, he's like oh,
so he's like hits. He's buddied up with this kid,
John patiocause he's like, hey, kid, you want to be
the valet. So the kid gets hired in LA and
he takes the trip north with them to San Francisco.
After his first thing is trying to get this pot

(48:58):
for and then he gets it in an envelope and
he like shoves it in his jacket and then when
the bus happens, he's like, oh, by the way, remember
that pot I put in your jacket. And that's what
they were whispering about when you saw them. He was
giving them. They like, hey, there's pot in your sad
the Feds should probably not see that. He gets really
stitched up by so yeah. Anyway, so what's this kid's

(49:20):
story in all this?

Speaker 4 (49:21):
Right?

Speaker 2 (49:21):
As the personal like the gopher for the band leader,
he's just hanging around waiting for Krupa to have some
need for him. That's his job, so doing that he's
hanging around. He sees these suspicious men also there at
the Golden Gate Theater, and it turns out they are
Federal narks and they're the ones who ended up busting
him because they're also watching this kid, so he's watching
them there watching him. The way the kid tells it,

(49:43):
the story goes as Jane came off the stage soaking
wet as usual, these three men walked over to him
and they said they wanted to talk to him. They
walked Gene into his dressing room and I walked right
after them. I felt something was wrong. They told me
to leave the room. I looked at Gene, who nodded approval,
but he had a very particular expression on his face.
I felt then that something was gonna happen. I waited

(50:04):
outside the dressing room for quite a while. Jane finally
came out, pale as a ghost and still soaking wet,
although he still had his robe on. He was all
shaken up and excited. He motioned to me to go
with him, and now I was all excited myself. So
we started to walk toward the washroom, and Jeane seemed
unable to talk at first, but finally he said to me, Johnny,

(50:24):
I want you to do something for me, and before
he could say another word, they broke up the conversation.
And then they walked Jane back to his dressing room
and they left me standing there alone. So what does
the kid do. He knows he needs to do something
for his drum hero, right, and may remember he's an excitable,
jitterbug kid he is. So he's got these g men
threatening his heroes. He's gonna save his hero. So he decides,

(50:46):
I'm gonna go save him from the FED. So back
to Patioko's right then and there, I thought, I know
what Gene wanted me to do. He was a nice
guy and I wanted to help him. So I ran
as fast as I could back to the hotel, and
I tried to get Frank Vinier, groups manager on the phone,
but it was busy. I finally got a bell hop
to let me in, and I took an envelope of
cigarettes out of the pocket of his coat in the

(51:08):
closet and left the room. Then I remembered that there
were also a few cigarettes in a drawer on the
writing desk, so I returned to the room and I
took those cigarettes out of the drawer and I put
them in the envelope and I left the room. And
then that's where he walked out of Jean Croupa's hotel
room and right into the arms of the waiting FED
who had followed him out of the Golden Gate theater.
Because this kid was so jitter batic excitable, he didn't

(51:29):
even think that the FED might fight out.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Yeah, just watch him. It's a little suspicious that, like
they whisper to each other, and then he runs off exactly, so.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
One of the Feds. They take him back now and
to the other FEDS, and this kid, the kid will cooperate,
He will not talk to them, right, So back to Patioko's.
After quite a while trying to make me say something,
the agents took me over to their office alone. There
they really gave me the works. They pushed me around
and threatened to hit me with a blackjack and beat
me up if I still refused to talk, and furthermore,

(51:58):
would put me in jail for prize of the cigarettes.
So when the kid won't betray as jazz Man hero,
the Caps then trick him by saying it wouldn't make
any difference to Jane because he would be in exactly
the same trouble anyway if I didn't say anything. So
the kid signs a confession that Jeane Crupa asked him
to go to his hotel room and grab his pot
and bring it back to him, and that's that that

(52:19):
the Krupa then had made the kid his drug mule. Yeah,
the charges are flimsy as hell, right, but they sound
terrible in the press. So the trial start. San Francisco
DA decides to make it a show trial and get
a little fame for himself. He throws the law book
at Krupa, right, but he has one problem. Star witness
is missing. Pattiocos disappears. He does he won't testify against Crupa.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
We ran the ran the risk.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Of snitch and signing a confession. So is what they do?
They go in and just read the confession. Yeah, exactly
so anyway, So both sides, though alleged that the other
side is hiding him and have bribed him to leave town.
Everyone's like, you you got rid of him. So because
they both I don't know things, somehow he's gonna help
them make their case. So you know what, Elizabeth, I
got a little more fun for you because here, I

(53:05):
would like you to be a federal agent on the
witness stand. I'll be Leslie Gillen, the assistant DA who's
prosecuting Gene Krupa. Okay, so are you ready? Is it
common knowledge that marijuana is frequently used because of its
definite propensity for distorting time by so called hot musicians
Jazz musicians is, and that is so they can beat

(53:29):
the drums or play a cornett or trombone without feeling
the effect of doing it right. I'm sorry, but I
just love asking a narc who's barely knowledgeable at the
interiority of jazz drummers and coronet players, Like when Big
Spiderbeck is on the jazz stand, what does he think?
I mean?

Speaker 4 (53:48):
Like?

Speaker 5 (53:48):
What is this kind?

Speaker 2 (53:50):
So Krupa takes the witness stand and the ADA grills
the pot fueled drummer right and asking him how he
makes his rhythms hit and sing and Crupa then says
from the witness stand, a man's ab to beat his
drums faster than someone else's because he has developed his
technique to a higher point, and it is easier to
play fast than it is for someone to play slow.
If I'm able to play faster than someone else. It

(54:11):
is because I have studied it and developed my technique.
I mean, it's very very obvious. Right, That's the same
way I can paint houses faster. But then he added,
in his opinion, the only whack drummers are the ones
who did rely on drugs and to get loose. As
Croup would put it, it might be true of hot
bands playing in dives, but that would be impossible for
members of a prominent band to habitually use marijuana in

(54:33):
view of the split second timing on radio and the
need for self possession on the stage. Yeah. So he's
basically saying like, I gotta be too cool for school
for that kind of Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
I gotta have my wits about me.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah. So Croup also emphasized that, in his opinion, only
drummers in small numbers the failures, all of them used
the weed. Right, But then he admitted that he was
somebody who used the later in its test, somebody's like that,
I also who was the weed? I did smoke the pot,
and so they got him, the trial concludes, despite the
star witness never appearing in court. Elizabeth, what do you

(55:07):
think the trial verdict was guilty? Yes. On June thirtieth,
nineteen forty three, a jury of his peers find Krupa
guilty of the delinquency of a minor. He's sentenced to
one to six years in San Quentin State Prison. What yes,
I told you morel panic, you're gonna You're not gonna,
You're not gonna scare people with the one to six.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Years twenty year old miner.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Yeah, exactly. So because the kid's gone, they can't confirm
the age. So at this point he thought, man, my
career is over, Dunzo daddy.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
But his lawyer is like, I can feel the sentence.
So headlines are a meanwhile announcing that there's been a
development in the case. Like a month later, the missing
star witness the Jitterbug Kid, the personal valet John Patiokos
is found alive and well. Oh in Los Angeles. FBI
found the kid because why he was on the lamb
from selective service. He'd gotten his draft car and cut.

(55:57):
That's what he didn't want to get drafted off to war.
So it seemed like this would help Crooper's appeal because
now they can confirm he is not a minor, because
if he's old enough to go to war. He's not
a miner. So in the meantime, Cruper works with his lawyer,
who he thinks he's in good hands because it's Howard
Hughes's lawyer, it's Errol Flynn's lawyer. He's like, I want
to Flynn right, So Nope, doesn't happen. He appeals his case.

(56:19):
All in all, Kroupa spends eighty four days in San
Francisco County jail. What but he never gets sent to
San Quentin because after enough time passes, people feel like, Okay,
we got what we wanted. We scared everybody. He doesn't
really matter. We got the headlines we got. So as
he waited to hear his fate on the state charges,
his fellow jazz men all rallied around Krupa. In fact,

(56:41):
even though he'd split from Benny Goodman and because of
all the personal tensions, Goodman reaches out to Krupa while
he's down and the two get back together and they
play their first show together in six years. Yeah. So,
in the end, the pot Buss was a good thing
for jazz music. It brought Crouper and Benny go back together,
and it eventually helped Crooper rebuild his career, and then
the FEDS they couldn't stop the jazz bab. So now

(57:02):
if you're wondering the unlucky jitterbug personal valet John Patios,
he wasn't able to continue dodging the draft. Once the
FBI caught him, they threw him in the service, They
sent him off to war, and he survived as a
medical coreman. He was basically like a like a CEO.
I was like, I'll heal people. I ain't shooting now,

(57:22):
So what's a ridiculous rug? Take away?

Speaker 3 (57:26):
My takeaway is every time we talk about like the
how villainized marijuana is, it's so frustrating, you know, because
it's like, I know, nothing is completely harmless, but when
I look at like the damage that like alcohol does
versus which is just you know, go for it according

(57:46):
to everybody, versus weed. And this this misnomber of how
people are, you know that they act like it's this stimulant,
like it's a PCP.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Or like you don't know what it is. It's whatever
they imagine people what they imagine. They have no experience
of the reality, so they're like, oh, it turns people
into these sex crazed lunatics who want to sleep all
the time, Like, which is it, which is you're doing everything?
You have them doing everything.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
And then I don't know. I just kind of feel
like if you can't really overdose on something and like,
you know, just let people do what they want.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Everything's a poison. The dose makes the poison exactly thing.
You can kill someone with water, So there's no such
thing as a real true poison. It's how you use something,
how much you use. So with this I have the
same thing, which is I don't like to legislate morality.
I'm like, if a person wants to smoke pot, let
them and then if it doesn't work out for them,
we can figure that part out. But like, if it's
not impairing their decisions where they're out there like slaughtering

(58:39):
people because they're on the drugs, then I don't have
a problem with it. Then I wish people could be
more grown up. And we still see the need the
desire to do prohibition, like, no, stop it, I'm gonna
tell you what to do because that ever worked. No,
it hasn't. So we have tons of centuries of history,
yet we still go this time it's gonna work well
and we.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Think about like the dangers of stuff is like you know,
under the influence of things. But if we had like
walkable cities with lots of third places, it would be
a non issue totally.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
But also, how about this, it's the responsibility of the driver. Yeah,
it's just saying like if they took too much cold
medicine and tell you it's the dose. So it's not
the pot that's the problem. It's the person making bad
choices and then driving, because they can make a bad
choice with anything. The pot isn't the problem. It's the
person making the.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Choice about the choices, the choices exactly.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Anyway I'm doing that. I'm getting off this damn soap
box because it's not ridiculous. Elizabe, are you the mood
for a talk back?

Speaker 3 (59:32):
I am always in the mood for a talkback?

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Can you favor us one? Oh my god, I went.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
Jee Elizabeth and Zaren. I want you to close your
eyes and picture it. You are eighteen years old. You
were raised in a conservative Christian household. You weren't shel
third from the media or anything, but you've certainly not
had a lot of personal, tangible life experiences, and you

(01:00:05):
are traveling abroad for the first time with your mom
in Paris, and you're looking for the SoC de Cour
and you get off at the wrong metro station, which
is fine. You're in a little bit of a sketchy neighborhood,
actually a very sketchy neighborhood, but you just figure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I'll just walk up the hill.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Fine eventually, and you leave the station and you run
into a very handsome man right outside of the fence
who is talking at you, yelling kind of but smiling friendly,
yelling rapid French, and you have no idea what he's
saying because you're a product of the American education system
and you know a little Spanish and basically just the
numbers and no French at all. So you say I'm sorry,

(01:00:44):
I'm sorry, and he says, oh English. You say yes,
and he says, uh, officer, police officers, a police officer,
and he points to the train and you say what, no,
I don't think so, and he says, thank you, messi,
and then he scales the fence behind you, jumps off
the turnstile, and jumps onto the train and you are
completely bewildered while your mom stands next to you, laughing hysterically.

(01:01:07):
Saying that you've just ate it and about someone running
from the police.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
But hey, you were very helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Of your little I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
And then you proceed to get roasted about that for
the next decade of your life. That's it, Hope, that
was a vivid for you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
I was there that eating in a bedding. That's like
the best kind of vacation activity.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Totally. You're in Paris and you can get in a
little area to come on.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Yeah, that's people pay a lot of money to be
able to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Yeah, forget an escape room, help someone escape. Well. As always,
you can find us online a Ridiculous Crime on social media.
Got a look around and we have the account Ridiculous
Crime Pod on YouTube. Go check it out. They're awesome,
and we have our website, ridiculous Crime dot com. I
believe we just won What was it? E Magazine's most

(01:02:03):
excited What was it? I forget the wording, the new
the book they were most excited to read this summer.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
E Entertainment Television's Hey, have you read this book? It's amazing,
you should read it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Thank you. It was such a long award going to
be people are never going to remember this yeah, well, anyway,
check out the website and if emails if you like
a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. As always, we
will catch you next crime. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime

(01:02:36):
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton That's her and Zarah Burnette
that's him. That's produced and edited by Mose Allison's piano teacher,
Dave Cusi and starring Annaly's Rucker As who did research
is by Betty Carter fan club president Marissa Brown. Our
theme song is by Jack t Garden's main man, Thomas
Lee and Travis They called him Jango Dutton. The host

(01:03:00):
wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred, guest tarn maker by
Sparkleshow and We Stood on Videos. Executive producers are Ben
One Day, Sunra woke up and went hold In and
Nol Please don't call me Downtown, Julie grow.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
We g.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
Cry, say it one more time We cry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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