Would appear to be found here...

Drummer's Tradition

Very hard to tell, but looks like a cloud badge on the snare.

There's also an earlier pic of Dodds in the book "New Orleans Jazz

and Second Line Drumming" playing the kit without the mounted

toms.

Again, the badge on the BD looks very Slingerland.

Roscoe - First of all, Thank You!, I do appreciate your input, as not many have taken interest in my post.

I have seen the kit you referred to, but it doesn’t give any details and the snare isn’t Dodds’ regular metal Ludwig (The one that is painted white, even the hoops), as seen in most of the photos and video throughout the years.

His WMP Bass was a tube lug, and there is a photo of the badge that could be a 30s vintage Ludwig. The set that is in the photo I posted is his regular set. The Bass head on the one in the photo that you posted from the drummerstradition dot com appears to be the same head though, so maybe that is Dodds’ set but his regular snare is missing. The Toms that baby ended up using, that replaced the earlier China Tom were added some time after Dodds started using the WMP tube lug Bass.

If the Toms have the WFL badge, as I think is pictured in my initial post on this. Then I think it is possible that the person who told the story about Dodds getting some drums as a gift from an important younger drummer may have misremembered, and it could have been a Dodds disciple by the name of Ray Bauduc (not Krupa) who is seen on the cover of the 1939 WFL catalog as an endorsee and playing the double tension, single lug toms.

Krupa is seen with Goodman (1938?) with a double tension, single lug Tom setup from Slingerland (I’ve seen the badge in one photo) but if Dodds’ Toms are WFL the lugs should be a somewhat different shape, and from the photos I’ve seen, I don’t have the experience with these drums to detect the subtle difference.

Hey, no problem. I tend to look into the orphan posts

because I might learn something too...

:p

The Baduc connection makes sense as according to the book

Dodds gigging on the riverboats ultimately led to his move to

Chicago in 1922.

It was here that George Wettling, Dave Tough and of course

Krupa got to see him first hand.

His two greatest disciples were Zutty Singleton and as you have

noted, Ray Bauduc. (Who if I'm not mistaken was a top dog on

the Ludwig Roster for his entire career.)

According to the Chief, Gene actually played Ludwig while

in high school. When his Father called Ludwig and Ludwig to

inquire about a deal on a new set he was turned down by

by sales manager Fred Miller. ( He didn't have the authority

to approve this, it had to go through the Elkhart office )

A look through the yellow pages led him to the Slingerland

Banjo and Drum Co...

DOH

Wow! Just today I was wondering about Krupa’s early sets. You have enlightened me to the answer to exactly some of the other questions that I had. 1.) What was he playing early on and 2.) How did his relationship with Slingerland come to be. Thank you for that info!:cool:

OK, for those who may have been looking into this. I was able to discover a couple of quotes from Baby Dodds' autobiography "The Baby Dodds Story" that shines some light on my own question. Someone might have read this book and misquoted the story about, seeing Gene Krupa’s set in a paper, as getting them from Krupa.

Page 87 The Baby Dodds Story

“I took a soft mallet and played “When the saints go marching in” using only the four drums. Those tom-toms were tunable and before playing the number I would tune them as to get just the right pitch. I worked that out while playing with Art Hodes and Cecil Scott at Ryan’s on 52nd street in New York.”

“I got those three tom-toms just before going to New York to play with the Bunk Johnson outfit. I had used tom-toms before but never in a set. I had only used one little Chinese tom-tom. But I got the idea for using three tom-toms from seeing a picture in a paper of Gene Krupa’s drum set. I never heard him play them but I thought it was a good idea so I got a set for myself. Then I found out that they were very tunable so I tuned them to get the tone I wanted. The first time I used them was playing with Bunk.”

So I will search out the timeline a little more but Dodds seems to have gotten his three WMP tom-toms himself, unless there is better proof to some other story. It seems to confirm what the photos of him show; that he already had his WMP tube lug bass drum before he got the toms (I think the BD is Ludwig too).

I’ve included another photo of the badge on one of those tom-toms. Baby seems to have favored Ludwig drums, and had some kind of personal/professional relationship with the Ludwig company/family so at the time he got those toms he may have gotten them from THE Ludwig family’s company WFL.

Thanks for the info and that wonderful photo of Baby Dodds.- yup obviously Ludwig there. Ofcourse we`re talking 1930s but what year exactly? Was Krupa in NYC already with a drum photo taken of his tunable toms- probablly... 1934?

What's the logo on the side of the drum. The long bar that appears on most of the photos?

Also note, all white snare, not the same as with the kit on Drummers Tradition? That one matches the set apparently.

Now you guys have me snooping photos. :)

Those toms are obviously WFL drums. They all have zephyr lugs on them and the sticker on that pic of the tom tom should read wfl drum co on it. Those toms all look like late 30's to me. Hard to tell from some of those photos. I can't tell what the snare and bass were.

Thank you all for getting in on this!

It looks like Dodds went to New York to work with Bunk Johnson in early 1945 (they recorded some and you can hear Dodds’ new toms on those recordings), so if as he says he acquired those toms just before going to New York, then the toms would be before that time. I think late 30s model toms for the ones he used that had the double tension single lug hardware. Judging by the Ludwig catalogs on vintagedrumguide.com, his WMP tube lug bass drum is likely late 30s also. I’m not an expert on these drums so feel free to point me in the right direction if you feel I’m off on this.

A special thanks to wflkurt for the zephyr lug identification on those up toms.

His floor tom is a double lug so it might be a later model of some brand. I haven’t seen a logo on it yet.