Cab Calloway

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Cab Calloway (1947)

Cab Calloway (actually Cabell Calloway III * 25. December 1907 in Rochester , New York ; † 18th November 1994 in Cokebury Village , Delaware ) was an American jazz - singer , saxophonist and bandleader .

Live and act

Bandleader Cab Calloway (photography by Carl van Vechten , 1933)

Calloway was the son of attorney Cabell Calloway II and teacher and organist Martha Eulalia Reed. He grew up in Baltimore and began his career as a singer in a number of jazz bands in the 1920s , following the example of his sister Blanche Calloway . The bands weren't successful, but Calloway stood out as a jazz entertainer because of his singing and dancing. In 1930 he recorded his first record and from 1931 had his first engagements in the legendary New York Cotton Club . Here he developed alongside Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington with the Missourians to be the most popular black entertainer of the 1930s and also appeared in some films such as Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937). In mid-1931 he had Six or Seven Times (# 14), (I'll be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal, You (# 17), Kickin 'the Gong Around (# 4) and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (# 15) his first hits in the charts. In the mid-1930s he worked on Betty Boop cartoons by Fleischer Studios , for example in Minnie the Moocher , named after his hit , in which his dance interludes were rotoscoped onto a walrus .

Soon he had his own big band and in 1942 his biggest hit with Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol 'Me) . His big band was made up of some of the absolute stars of the swing era, including a. trumpeters Lamar Wright and Doc Cheatham , trombonist Claude Jones , guitarist Danny Barker , drummer Cozy Cole (famous for his crescendo in drums ), and especially the tenor saxophonist Chu Berry . According to musicians, the latter was only persuaded to participate in Calloway's orchestra after Cab had promised him that he would never touch a tenor saxophone again in his presence. In 1945 he was once again placed in the charts with the Harold Arlen number Let's Take the Long Way Home (# 20); After the Second World War , the swing orchestra's heyday came to an end and he had to disband his orchestra in 1948. From then on Calloway appeared with other bands.

An article in Ebony magazine in 1951 cost him some sympathy among his music colleagues. The article, signed with Cab Calloway, said that drugs are what drives the music business and that many musicians use drugs.

George Gershwin designed the role of Sportin 'Life in his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, modeled on Cab Calloway. Calloway would not appear on stage in this role until the 1950s.

Cab Calloway became known to audiences beyond the boundaries of jazz through his appearance in the cult film Blues Brothers in 1980. Minnie the Moocher was Calloway's signature song and is still his best known song today, it even became a party hit and was played in discos . Calloway also sang it in 1960 in the German hit film Schlagerraketen - Festival of Hearts . In 2012 it experienced a renaissance in discotheques with a remix by Lian Ross & Alan Alvarez.

From one at his home in on 12 June 1994 Westchester County ( New York) suffered stroke , he never recovered and died on 18 November. In February 2008, Cab Calloway received a posthumous Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in Los Angeles . One of his daughters was the jazz singer Chris Calloway (1945-2008).

Filmography (selection)

Discography (selection)

Since Calloway published almost all singles before 1958, and thus before the Billboard Hot 100 was confirmed as the official chart rating in the USA , only two songs were able to place in the charts during his career.

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
US US
1956 Little Child
 US62

(2 weeks)US
with his son Lael Calloway as Lael & Cab Calloway
1966 History Repeats Itself US89 (3 weeks)
US

Fonts

  • Cab Calloway, Bryant Rollins: Of Minnie The Moocher & Me. Thomas Y. Crowell Comp., New York 1976.

literature

Web links

Commons : Cab Calloway  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ June 12, 1994 . In: MusikWoche . The news magazine for the music industry . No. 24/1998 , June 8, 1998, Wochenschau, p. 16 .
personal data
SURNAME Calloway, Cab
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calloway, Cabell III. (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer and band leader
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Rochester , New York
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1994
Place of death Cokebury Village , Delaware