“King Porter Stomp” — Teddy Hill & His NBC Orchestra
"King Porter stomp" is one of the oldest jazz standards. It was composed in 1905 by New Orleans born Jelly Roll Morton, a pianist in a Storyville brothel.
The composer named it after fellow pianist Porter King.
Morton never recorded it himself with a full band, but countless other musicians did.
One of them was Alabama born tenor saxophonist Teddy Hill (1909-1978), who started his musical career on drums and trumpet.
Hill made several records with jazz musicians such as Luis Russell and King Oliver before becoming a bandleader himself in 1932.
This May 17, 1937 recording of Teddy Hill and his NBC Orchestra is interesting because it contains the first recorded solo of a 19-year old trumpet player named John Birks Gillespie.
Hill met this young lad - better known today as Dizzy Gillespie - during the bandleader's engagement at the Savoy Ballroom.
There, Gillespie often sat in with that band, playing next to Hill's trumpet player Roy Eldridge.
When Eldridge left the band, Hill asked Gillespie, who by now learned how to play in Eldridge's style, to take his place.
The other soloists are Russell Procope (alto saxophone), Dicky wells (trombone), and Bob Carroll (tenor saxophone).
Later that year, Teddy Hill, Gillespie and the other band members made a "Cotton Club Revue" tour of England, France and Ireland.
In 1940, after Hill disbanded, he became the musical manager of Minton's Playhouse in Harlem.
This New York establishment was an after hours jazz club where musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, went after their gigs.
In time Minton's Playhouse would become the "cradle of bebop."
For further listening pleasure I recommend the large collection of over 400 jazz records, including this one, which can be enjoyed at the YouTube channel of Skandinavian tenor saxophonist Lars Bang Andersen.
