"About four thousand neighborhood and visiting cats scratched and clawed for points of vantage
in the Marine Ballroom of Atlantic City's Steel Pier on Saturday, April 16, and then,
once perched on their pet posts, proceeded to welcome with most exuberant howls and huzzahs the
first public appearance of drummer-man Gene Krupa and his newly formed jazz band. The way the
felenic herd received, reacted to and withstood the powerful onslaughts of Krupa's quadruple
"f' musical attacks left little doubt that Gene is now firmly entrenched at the helm of a swing
outfit that's bound to be recognized very shortly as one of the most potent bits of catnip to be
fed to the purring public that generally passes as America's swing contingent.... Throughout the
evening the kids and the kittens shagged, trucked, jumped up and down and down and up, and often
yelled and screamed at the series of solid killer-dillers."
George Simon
Metronome Magazine
May 1938