Gene is a hero tro me. In my high school jazz band we played sing,sing,sing and I looked up his name knowing he was the original recorder of that song. WOW!! LOK HIM UP... Theres a battle between him and Buddy Rich thats amazing

I think Gene wrote Sing Sing. The story I was told went like this...

Gene writes song, Benny (apparently a bit of a tight ass) doesn't think crowd want to hear "drum solos" so makes a deal that if the crowd like it he'll double Gene's wages but if not, he'll half them.

Gene takes the challenge and the crowd LOVE it. So much so they do the piece twice the first night.

The rest is history. Gene paved the way for all of us, including Buddy. Whether the story is correct or not I don't know, but I like it anyway!

Great song, wish we had full on jazz bands when I was at school.








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