"In 1952 a 27 year old Gene Palma entered a Gene Krupa Drum Contest (done to promote The Gene Krupa Story at the Loew’s Orpheum on 86th Street) and won it, setting him on his lifelong pursuit of drumming perfection to the exclusion of everything else — wife, children, job. Then at the age of 45 he became a street musician. Not much is known beyond this except that he made a deep impression on a generation of New Yorkers who saw him perform on the street, and on countless thousands who saw his pivotal cameo in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver"
