DRUMMER’S DOWNFALL

Evening Star, Issue 22889, 22 February 1938, Page 11

DRUMMER’S DOWNFALL

EARNED £IOO A WEEK COULD NOT LOOK AFTER IT Ten years ago, when jazz was sweeping Britain and radio brought a new form of entertainment into millions of homes, one of the outstanding personalities among the dance band players was Alec Cnpps, jazz drummer. He first entered the limelight with the late Bert Railton’s band. His skill was quickly realised, and soon he became an idol with millions of people whom he helped to entertain when playing with famous dance bands in fashionable London hotels, in night clubs, and on the radio. In his heydey, it is said, he earned more than £IOO a week. He lived in luxurious style. He was feted wherever he went. Then he began to fall. ■ .

There was a sequel at the London Sessions when in his correct name of Alexander Cecil Cripps, aged 37, he was sentenced to eight months’ hard labour for breaking into the Red Lion public house in Great Windmill street, West London. Few who knew Cripps when he was on top of the world would have recognised in the somewhat pathetic figure in the dock the tall, well-built, handsome jazz drummer who once was one of the most striking men in any fashionable ballroom. One of Cripps’s closest friends told an interviewer the story of his downfall - . , , „ “ Alec was really a big-hearted kid, he stated. “In his way he was a genius as a jazz dummer. But unfortunately money came too easily to him, and ho did not know how to take care of it. , “ He was generous to a degree, and, as usually happens in cases like this, he fell a victim to a certain set in tue West End. They use the drink clubs as their headquarters. I know three youngsters, all iti good positions, who, at the moment, are in the same danger. “ Within a quarter of a mile radius of Piccadilly there are no fewer than 1,860 drink clubs and more than 50 bottle parties. Many of them, or course, are very respectable, but some of them are dens of vice. “ Until the latter are cleaned up there will always be a -grave danger of youngsters falling victims to the gangs which frequent them.”