This was in the NY Times obit:
"Mr. McNeely’s breakthrough record, however, had come a decade earlier: “Deacon’s Hop,” a growling, percussive instrumental released on the Savoy label. Based on Lester Young’s tenor saxophone solo on the Count Basie Orchestra’s 1940 recording “Broadway,” “Deacon’s Hop” spent two weeks at the top of Billboard’s Race Records chart, as it was then called, in 1949."
Never knew that.
Ooops just read the obit in the LA Times which tells a different story:
'Said McNeely to biographer Marc Myers: “A kid I knew in Watts had a record shop. He gave me a record by Glenn Miller that opened with the drummer playing the sock cymbal. I can't remember the name of the song, but I built a blues [riff] off of it called ‘Deacon’s Hop.’”'
B TW that obit reminded me of the DJ who mc'd the LA R&B concert I saw: Hunter Hancock.