АнтологияДжаза Benny Carter [CD] { } ~93.11.20 246

Dizzy, as such, studied harmony and theory while still young and had music studies paid for by his father till age 15. He took over Roy Eldridge’s chair in the Teddy Hill Band in 1937. Eldridge was Dizzy’s musical idol and played a good imitation of him but gradually developed his own style. An interesting note from the Berendt book states that the time distance between Dizzy and Armstrong is surprisingly short - the Hill band grew out of the Lewis Russell Orchestra and Russell had taken over the King Oliver Band in 1929. A case might be stated that Dizzy’s immediate roots in jazz are the traditions of New Orleans and Chicago Dixieland. It should be noted that his first recording - in 1937 - was Jelly Roll Morton’s King Porter Stomp with the Teddy Hill Band. Returning to the States after a tour of Europe in 1937 with the Hill Band - where his playing abilities were already recognized - he became a member of the Cab Calloway Orchestra [with the famous/infamous Diz cutting Cab story]. Dizzy, in spite of his admission of ‘difficulty’ copying Eldridge’s style and that he ‘quite didn’t get it’, worked in the bands of Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Lucky Millander, Earl Hines, Duke Ellington, and Billy Eckstine ...»