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Studious drummers, selling drum outfits, standardization, and stardom

Literacy, education, and standardization were key steps forward in consolidating the drum kit’s legitimacy in the 1930s. This chapter examines the biographies of many early drummers and how they learnt to play the drum kit. Arguments over how to play the drum kit were inseparable from the changing form of the drum kit itself, as manufacturers like Ludwig, Slingerland, Leedy, and Gretsch competed to sell standardized, pre-bundled drum kits in their catalogues rather than the hodge-podge, self-assembled drum kits of the past. This chapter discusses the creation of an international market for drum kits through a combination of instrument innovation, education, and old-fashioned hucksterism. Drum manufacturers created their own newsletters as a way of convincing drummers to buy their product. The chapter also examines the career of swing era drummer Gene Krupa, comparing him with African-American drummer Chick Webb, an influential but less well known drumming bandleader.