Monthly Archives: February 2012

Read a timeline detailing the landmarks in the life and career of Cab Calloway.

Director Gail Levin explains why she chose to direct the documentary Cab Calloway: Sketches and her hopes for the impact the documentary will have on today's musicians.

In 1980, Cab Calloway was (re)discovered by a new generation, in a filmed tribute to black music, The Blues Brothers. Long-term jazz fans, young initiates or blossoming rappers would be filled with the spirit of the last living jazz legend.

Lou Marini (saxophone), Steve Cropper (guitar), and Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass) tell a story about a time when Cab Calloway sang "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess while walking to their respective elevators. Cab Calloway: Sketches premieres nationally Monday, February 27 at 10 p.m. (ET) on ...

Jazz writer Gary Giddens and jazz critic/cultural historian Stanley Crouch tell one of the great stories about the rivalry between Cab Calloway and Dizzy Gillespie, both eccentric performers in their own right, when Gillespie played trumpet in Calloway's band. Cab Calloway: Sketches premieres nationally Monday, ...

Danny Holgate plays a section of George Gershwin's "Ain't Necesarily So" from Porgy and Bess, a song sung by a Cab inspired character, in an outtake from the documentary Cab Calloway: Sketches. Cab Calloway: Sketches premieres nationally Monday, February 27 at 10 p.m. (ET) on ...

Chris Calloway Brooks, musician and current director of the Cab Calloway Orchestra, discusses his grandfather Cab Calloway's accomplishments and style. Cab Calloway: Sketches premieres nationally Monday, February 27 at 10 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). In the New York metro-area the film airs ...

In this clip, Cab Calloway gives a tour of historic Harlem Jazz clubs with an animated map. Swing by the Cotton Club, which was home to the Cab Calloway Band, and learn about where the singers and band leaders and dancers went to get the ...

Margaret Mitchell was no ordinary writer. The one book she published in her lifetime - Gone With the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, 75 years ago. With over 30 million copies sold to date, it is one of the world's best-selling novels. The ...

Horn player Gerald Wilson, jazz writer Gary Giddens, and jazz critic/cultural historian Stanley Crouch discuss how Cab's straight hair, unusual in people of African American descent, and his ability to toss it while performing, played into his persona and popularity as an entertainer. Cab Calloway: ...