‹ Deck
Cab Calloway card front Flip the card ⟳

Swing-Era Dossier

Cab Calloway

1907 – 1994

Born

December 25, 1907, Rochester, New York. Given name Cabell Calloway III. The family moved to Baltimore in 1919, so he was raised in West Baltimore — which is why Baltimore is often miscited as his birthplace ("born Rochester, raised Baltimore"). Father a lawyer, mother a teacher/church organist. His older sister Blanche Calloway was an established singer/bandleader before him and his way into show business.

Died

November 18, 1994, Cokesbury Village, Hockessin, Delaware, age 86. Cause: pneumonia, a complication of the stroke he suffered June 12, 1994 at his home in Westchester County, NY — he died about five months later. (Some sources garble this by putting the death in NY; the stroke was in NY, the death in Delaware.)

Instruments / role

Vocalist + bandleader — scat singer, electric frontman, dancer and showman; also songwriter and actor. Not primarily an instrumentalist — his instruments were his voice and his showmanship. Started young as a singer, drummer, and MC; took voice lessons from 1922. Also a serious basketball player (guard for the Baltimore Athenians of the Negro pro league; reportedly turned down the Globetrotters to sing). Mentored as a youth by drummer Chick Webb.

Nicknames

  • "The Hi-De-Ho Man" — from the call-and-response "hi-de-ho" scat in "Minnie the Moocher" (1931), reportedly improvised the night he forgot a lyric mid-song.
  • "His Royal Highness of Hi-De-Ho" — the same persona.

Bands / years

  • The Alabamians (1929) — took over leadership, opened at the Savoy; too old-fashioned for New York and folded, but Cab personally dazzled.
  • The Missourians → Cab Calloway Orchestra (1930) — took over the struggling Missourians and renamed the band; first recordings July 1930.
  • Cotton Club (Feb 1931) — his orchestra became the house band, succeeding Duke Ellington while Ellington toured; twice-weekly NBC radio broadcasts made him a national star.
  • Long run, then breakup (April 1948) — postwar economics + the shift to bebop ended the big band.
  • A famous finishing school (peak ~1931–42): Dizzy Gillespie, Ben Webster, Chu Berry, Cozy Cole, Milt Hinton, Doc Cheatham, Danny Barker, Mario Bauzá.
  • Later stage/film: Porgy and Bess (Sportin' Life, 1952–54), Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey (1967), The Blues Brothers (1980).

Active

~1927–1994 (over six decades).

Signature tunes

"Minnie the Moocher" (1931) above all; "St. James Infirmary" (1930), "Kickin' the Gong Around" (1931), "Reefer Man" (1932), "The Old Man of the Mountain" (1932), "(Hep-Hep!) The Jumpin' Jive" (1939).

Famous compositions (composition split — he co-wrote two of his signatures and performed the rest; watch the Irving Mills credit-padding pattern):

  • Co-wrote — "Minnie the Moocher" (Calloway / Irving Mills / Clarence Gaskill). His contribution (the hi-de-ho call-and-response, the vocal arrangement) is real, though the lyric borrows from "Willie the Weeper" and manager-publisher Mills was attached for a royalty share, as was standard.
  • Co-wrote — "(Hep-Hep!) The Jumpin' Jive" (Calloway / Froeba / Palmer) — a clean shared credit, no Mills (they'd split by 1939).
  • Did NOT write: "St. James Infirmary" (a traditional folk-blues; the "Joe Primrose" credit is an Irving Mills pseudonym — Cab made it famous, didn't write it), "Kickin' the Gong Around" (Arlen/Koehler), "Reefer Man" (Robinson/Razaf), "The Old Man of the Mountain" (Young/Hill).

Interesting facts

  • "Minnie the Moocher" is often cited as the first jazz record to sell a million copies. Hedge the bolder "first record by a Black artist to sell a million" claim — Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" (1920) predates it and no audited pre-1958 sales figures exist. Grammy Hall of Fame (1999), National Recording Registry (2019).
  • He literally wrote the book on jive. Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A "Hepster's" Dictionary (1938) — a ~200-term glossary of Harlem slang, widely billed as the first dictionary published by an African American.
  • The Buzz — a moonwalk decades early. He did a gliding backstep on film as far back as 1932 ("it was called the Buzz back then"); observers cite it as a moonwalk precursor (but no source shows Michael Jackson personally credited him — don't overclaim).
  • Betty Boop rotoscoped his dancing. Max Fleischer traced Calloway's actual movements into three pre-Code cartoons — Minnie the Moocher (1932, the ghostly walrus is Cab), Snow-White (1933), The Old Man of the Mountain (1933).
  • The spitball that wasn't Dizzy's. At a 1941 show, Cab was hit by a spitball, blamed bandmember Dizzy Gillespie, and in the scuffle Dizzy cut him with a knife and was fired — but the real culprit was trumpeter Jonah Jones, not Dizzy.
  • The zoot suit's most famous wearer — the iconic white zoot suit in Stormy Weather (1943), though he popularized rather than invented the style.
  • Sportin' Life. He played the role in Porgy and Bess (1952–54); the story that Gershwin modeled the character on him is repeated everywhere but undocumented (John W. Bubbles originated it in 1935) — treat as legend.
  • The Blues Brothers (1980) — as Curtis, performing "Minnie the Moocher," drove a major career resurgence; National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Sources

Clips