Teddy Hill

Teddy Hill (December 7, 1909, Birmingham, Alabama - May 19, 1978, Cleveland, Ohio) was a big band leader and the manager of Minton's Playhouse, a seminal jazz club in Harlem. He played a variety of instruments, including drums, clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophone. After moving to New York City, Hill had early gigs with the Whitman Sisters, George Howe and Luis Russell's orchestra in the 1920s, later forming his own band in 1934, which found steady work over the NBC radio network. Over several years it featured such major young musicians as Roy Eldridge, Bill Coleman, Frankie Newton and Dizzy Gillespie.All Music Guide Biography of Teddy Hill [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0nfexqt5ldde~T0] ] Hill's band played at the Savoy Ballroom regularly, and toured England and France in the summer of 1937. After leaving the band business, Hill began to manage Minton's Playhouse in 1940, which became a hub for the bebop style, featuring such major musicians as Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke. Hill left Minton's in 1969, long after its musical significance had declined; he then became the manager of Baron's Lounge.

Personal Life

In the late 1930s, a singer named Bonnie Davis started working as a singer in New York, initially in Teddy Hill's band. She and Hill had a daughter together, Melba Hill (born October 29, 1945 in New York City), who later became the singer Melba Moore.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0nfexqt5ldde~T0 Teddy Hill at the All Music Guide]