Why Verve, or the company that now owns the Verve catalog,  has refrained from releasing more from their Krupa back-catalog on to compact disc is a mystery to me. Aside from from the three issues Gene did with Buddy Rich, Verve has elected to release only two other Krupa albums on CD in the U.S. — 1956’s “Drummer Man“ & “Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements“ from 1958. Luckily, due to lax copyright laws in Europe, we do have alternative options.

One such alternative is from from a company in the UK called AVID JAZZ, who have stepped up where Verve has failed and recently released a couple of multi-album Krupa CDs. These bargain priced double CDs each contain at least four of Gene’s Verve/Clef original albums per issue in each surprisingly good sounding release.

Look for us featuring content from these releases in future posts!