Cab Calloway

This article is about the musician. For the school, see Cab Calloway School of the Arts.

Cab Calloway
Calloway by William Gottlieb, 1947
Calloway by William Gottlieb, 1947
Background information
Birth nameCabell Calloway III
Born(1907-12-25)December 25, 1907[1]
Rochester, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 18, 1994(1994-11-18) (aged 86)
Hockessin, Delaware, U.S.
Genres
Occupations
  • Singer
  • bandleader
Years active1927–1994

Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.[2]

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole.[3]

Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of a record. He became known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the Billboard charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s).[4] Calloway also made several stage, film, and television appearances until his death in 1994 at the age of 86. He had roles in Stormy Weather (1943), Porgy and Bess (1953), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Hello Dolly! (1967). His career enjoyed a marked resurgence from his appearance in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

Calloway was the first African-American to have a nationally syndicated radio program.[5] In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress.[6] He posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. His song "Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2019.[7] In 2022, the National Film Registry selected his home films for preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films".[8] He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the International Jazz Hall of Fame.

  1. ^ "Cab Calloway | Biography, Songs, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  2. ^ "Transition". Newsweek. November 27, 1994.
  3. ^ Litchman, Irv (December 3, 1994). "Cab Calloway Conquered Biz With Panache". Billboard. pp. 10, 105.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Brooks, Peter (July 26, 2019). "The case for the Calloway house". The Baltimore Sun. p. 11.
  6. ^ Lelyveld, Nita (October 4, 1993). "National Medal of Arts to Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Arthur Miller". AP News.
  7. ^ Morgan, David (March 20, 2019). "Jay-Z, Cyndi Lauper, "Schoolhouse Rock" added to National Recording Registry". CBS News.
  8. ^ Ulaby, Neda (December 14, 2022). "'Iron Man,' 'Super Fly' and 'Carrie' are inducted into the National Film Registry". NPR. Retrieved December 15, 2022.