Watch the full one hour documentary Cab Calloway: Sketches below.

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1924
Calloway attracts notice for both his athleticism in basketball and artistic skills. He follows in the footsteps of his older sister, Blanche, who is already a recognized performer. Cab receives a few lucky breaks filling in for important shows and helping hands from established peers, such as Louis Armstrong.

1927
Cab performs his first tour with Plantation Days (1927) in the black theatre circuit with the attendant difficulties.

1929
Calloway manages to make an impression at the Savoy Ballroom despite his orchestra’s failure (his band is kicked out, while he is hired to lead the band that beat them!). He attracts notice from Irving Mills and Duke Ellington’s musicians.

1931-1940
Cab Calloway has a residency at the Cotton Club under a  white manager and plays for predominantly white audiences.

29 December, 1931
Cab plays the Lucky Strike show. This is the first white radio show to welcome a black big band.

1932
Cab Calloway appears in 3 Betty Boop cartoons and from then on is repeatedly caricatured in cartoons of the time.

Summer 1932
Cab Calloway tours through the Jim Crow south becoming the first renowned black big band to tour the segregated southern states.

30s and 40s
Cab Calloway tours and experiences racial troubles. Rioting during concerts, caused by segregated audiences. Cab is obliged to hire a private train.

Poster for Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra

1934
Cab takes a European tour (England, Holland, Belgium, France), and experiences the differences between the ways Blacks are treated in America versus in Europe.

1935
Cab attempts to move into a white neighborhood and is rejected by the neighbors, who put racist signs up in his front yard.

1937
Cab writes an article about how white jazz musicians are robbing black orchestras.

1938
Cab Calloway’s dictionary of jazz musicians’ slang, Hepcat Jive Dictionary, is put on the shelves of the New York Public Library.

1939
Cab’s recording 78 rpm, “Jumpin’ Jive,” sells 1 million copies.

1941
Calloway gets involved in the struggle for black jazz musicians’ right to take the bus rather than be obliged to travel by car.

1942
Cab’s radio quiz show Quizzicale is suspended for lack of sponsors.

1942
The “Zazou” fad in France of young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing similar to the ‘zoot’ suit in America during the Occupation inspires by Cab Calloway and others to create Zazou photos from France

1943
Cab appears in Stormy Weather, one of the first films with an all-star black cast. Racial problems occur during filming, such as eating and housing arrangements for the cast and black press reactions. The film is censored by a Memphis D.A.

Cab Calloway's 78 rpm "Jumpin' Jive"

1945
Calloway attempts to found a black symphony orchestra and a school of jazz music

1945
Cab Calloway gets in an altercation at a Lionel Hampton concert. He is beaten by a white cop but is charged with assault.

1945
Cab marries Nuffie, a militant black feminist.

1946
Cab throws a benefit concert for Isaac Woodard, a black soldier blinded by a racist policeman.

1948
The FBI starts a file on Cab’s activities.

1952
Cab appears in Porgy and Bess for the US and European tour.

1954
Cab is refused a seat at a bar in Las Vegas, where they’d gone for a drink with Louis Prima after a concert. Prima is so outraged by the incident that it affects the course of his career.

1957
Cab moves to White Plains, an upper-middle-class suburb of New York.

1958
Cat participates in the Nat King Cole Show on TV, which is in danger for ending for the same reasons as the Quizzicale.

1968
Cab appears in Hello Dolly.

1977
Cab Calloway appears on Sesame Street.

1980
Blues Brothers creates a tribute to black culture, and a resurgence in popular interest in Cab Calloway.

1985-1994
Cab performs a world tour and multiple revivals.

1992
Cab is invited to the White House where he is decorated by Bill Clinton.

Cab Calloway: Sketches director Gail Levin

hi de hi de hi de hi!!!…

…as popular as this Minnie the Moocher refrain still is and as often as it is evoked by even today’s most popular stylists, it should not eclipse another classic piece, equally evocative of the illustrious and inimitable Cab Calloway, the anthem of Sportin’ Life, it ain’t necessarily so…

Calloway had a unique ability to actually “be” his music…  he inhabited every note, every nuance, making him singularly exciting as both “l’homme spectacle” and a sort of natural wonder… Sportin’ Life, the irrepressible and seductive dandy of PORGY & BESS, seemed ordained for him – ready for his slick and effortless moves, his beguiling and infectious personality…  one suspects Cab just had to move over a little to let Sportin’ Life out!…  so as we think about a film evoking the ineffable grace of Calloway, his style, his longevity, his indelible effect, that slithery, willowy guy that is Cab, was also every role he ever touched…   his life did not imitate his art – his life was his art!…

The colorful (pardon the pun) and extraordinary effect of Cab Calloway has been oddly overlooked in terms of a comprehensive, yet exuberant, film on his unparalleled life and times — his enduring place in the entertainment canon… though he easily comes to mind and appeared in countless cameo’s and performances in other people’s works, cartoons and shorts, it is now time to reprise this force of nature on his own terms…

As has been stated in the treatment, Calloway was a constant ambassador for his race and his music… a consummate musician and performer, he charmed audiences across the world with a light touch, a glistening smile, endless bravado and elegant musicianship…

And he embodied another rare characteristic – the ability to never lose his edge nor to become tired to the public…  for decades the “hi de hi de hi de ho” of Minnie has only continued to enchant and to captivate – always welcome and always keeping audiences panting for more…  the perfect example being Cab’s appearance in the 1980 homage to all things cool, hip and actually Black in America – the Blues Brothers!…  a gigantically popular film still, this gushing love affair with the legacy of Black music and musicians does, like Cab, have it’s own mythology, it’s own continuing cult…  and the advent of it’s thirtieth anniversary in 2010, is itself reason enough to look again at the fab Cab…

So it is our desire here to resurrect  Cab… to shine a new light on him, dust off his legend a bit and regard him as not only a triumph of his times but a timeless emblem of them as well…  The journey of the Black entertainer in America is one fraught with disgrace and struggle, racism and intolerance and a sort of “otherness” that often left the Black stars in a quandary trying to reconcile their place within the complexities of American society and the American audience…  One need only think of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club – entertainers adored by white audiences, yet expected to sit on the back of the bus…

The European’s, however, were something else… Seemingly color-blind and ever reverent in the face of genius, Black entertainers and in particular musicians, enjoyed enormous acceptance and adulation creating a sort of schism in their own consciousnesses…  We are reminded of people like Josephine Baker, the Dexter Gordon character of ‘round midnight, the good-will tours of Dizzy Gillespie as examples of a very uneven world…  lionized across the ocean, marginalized at home…

This film is filled with the opportunity to re-immortalize Cab Calloway… Of course we will access and hope to invoke the vast archival material, not simply from the Calloway estate but from others as well, like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington or Dizzy Gillespie – all of whom count in the journey… And all equally exposed to the various cultural attitudes that surrounded Black entertainers on both sides of the Atlantic…

And along with the unearthing of material we think may never have been seen or heard before, we will hope to create yet another Cab persona – another animated “take” on him – which will enliven him to audiences that do not know him and will just add to the lore among those who do…  two great caricaturists – Steve Brodner in the US and Cabu in France – will put their pens and their personalities to new evocations of Calloway bringing art and animation as a very real element to the film…  We anticipate their interpretations on audio tracks, repositioning within the music and within created scenarios to bring a surprisingly new dimension to an appreciation of the uniqueness of this creature, Cab Calloway…  if one simply looks at his sinuous moves, his innate rhythm, his musicianship he entices the artist to come along…  he is an abiding subject so again, not only do we want to revisit him, we want to recreate him, if you will…

The film’s opening sequence will immediately lead us into the dance. Back to the street  in Harlem today (could be the original Cotton Club location, the Apollo theatre or another yet to be determined…)  we are watching the great American caricaturist Steve Brodner as he draws a lifesize depiction of Cab Calloway… Wwe will construct a vast canvas right on the street, integrated right into the actual fabric of Harlem. The idea is again to bring the street to life and Cab to life anew – and to elicit  responses from people watching. Some people will, of course, know immediately who Cab was – others will hopefully become interested and be curious as to what we are doing and who he was…

Perhaps as Brodner draws, people will sing or scat or just improvise what they may know of Cab’s repertoire – so maybe we will hear a few “hi de ho’s”  or “it ain’t necessarily so” or “yo Cab” or something entirely originally inspired… And we will actively encourage this participation from onlookers. We may create some way of playing Cab’s music and mixing it in, but we will hope to generate a great happening. And from this living canvas will emerge a new portrait of Cab, who will step off that page and be dancin’ in the street! This spontaneous scat symphony of art and music will fade across to Cab  in the Cotton Club, 1934…

Aside from these artistic and animated renderings, it is also our hope to reunite the Blues Brothers band and to incorporate new performances from other musicians, getting their “take” on this masterpiece of movement and emotion that is Cab Calloway…  new artists like Ne-yo, a pop and r&b, sometime rapper or classic jazz masters like Jon Faddis or Marcus Roberts who grew up in the echo of Calloway’s particular genius…  melding the performances with a sort of “animated documentary” approach, infusing the archival material with spontaneous eruptions of memory and moment, will give this film a very “in the present” feeling…  not another biopic in that sense of interview and recollection, but a re-invigoration of the whole Calloway presence and a reprise of a timeless virtuoso…

Cab Calloway, as the French say, “l’homme spectacle,”  and as the Americans say, “showman!”

Gail Levin

That’s how, 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.

For almost 15 years, right to the end, Cab Calloway would travel the world singing Minnie The Moocher – a song he performed for the first time back in 1931.

Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather (1943). Image courtesy of Artline Films / J.-F. Pitet.

Yet this consummate performer’s life started in the streets of Baltimore – tending horses at the racetracks, delivering newspapers or looking for trouble with local gangs. The king of “Hi de Ho” started out as a little punk, determined to cut classes and not to study law as his mother would have wished. He preferred singing –in church or in the street with the little quartet he’d founded. His career began to gather momentum when his older sister Blanche, who had already performed with Louis Armstrong, came through Baltimore on tour. It was the little nudge from fate he needed to get into the Plantation Days revue, and to make it to Chicago with that company. In the Windy City’s Sunset Café, he began to attract serious attention for his uniquely exciting performances: the way he moved on stage, jumped up on tables and more… To the point that a band that happened to be in town fired their own leader and hired Cab instead! The Alabamians headed for New York with a contract for the famed Savoy Ballroom in their pockets. But from the first night, the house band wiped the floor with them. Still, the audience, which also voted for best band leader, picked Cab, who was offered the job of conducting the winners: the Missourians. Once again, thanks to Cab Calloway, they caught the attention of Duke Ellington’s agent, Irving Mills.

At the time, Ellington was playing at the Cotton Club. The prestigious Harlem nightclub was run by gangsters who “invited” Cab Calloway to replace Ellington while he was on tour… and threatened to trash whatever other venue Cab was supposed to be playing to make the offer harder to refuse!

Suddenly, the young Cab Calloway (barely 23 then, in early 1930) was the new star of the Cotton Club, the chic place for rich white people to enjoy the twin thrills of slumming in Harlem and taking in the elegant, sexy revues performed by stunning and scantily clad black showgirls… and by Calloway’s band. He soon became the darling of journalists and of New York’s nightlife. The radio quickly caught on to the phenomenon, broadcasting his shows three times a week: the United States had discovered Cab Calloway, and he was an overnight success.

Thanks to Minnie The Moocher and its endlessly scatted chorus of “Hi de Ho’s”, Cab Calloway became the first black performer to sell a million copies of a 78 record! Oddly enough, the upbeat sounding song actually tells the tale of a poor girl under the thumb of a pimp who cares more about coke than love. Calloway’s repertory gradually expanded to include songs about drugs (Kicking the Gong Around, The Reefer Man…). Even if the crowds didn’t always grasp the songs’ meaning, they fell under the spell of the rhythm and of Cab Calloway’s ever-wilder performances. It should be pointed out that Cab totally stood out from other band leaders of his day, who did no more than limply wave their batons to the beat and smile at the audience. Cab always went a step further, shaking his unkempt hair, grimacing through his scats, and dancing, well… to beat the band! He was never boring, tending, if anything, towards overdoing it!

Be that as it may, his success literally knew no bounds. His popularity was such that his was the first black band to be invited onto the The Lucky Strike Show on the radio, and even more amazingly, the first one of its stature to tour the southern states. Even though he was Cab Calloway, applauded by ever-larger crowds at every stop, the tension was tremendous. And both insults and threats rained down. The hateful beat of segregation and Jim Crow was stronger than the music. Audiences were usually segregated, with the Black and White seats separated by a rope, or else back-to-back concerts were given, one for each “color.”

Swearing that he wouldn’t put himself through that kind of humiliation ever again, Cab decided that from then on, he would tour with a specially chartered Pullman train that would keep his band members safe and guarantee them a decent place to sleep wherever they went, as they weren’t allowed into white hotels.

His 1934 European tour (England, Holland, Belgium and Pleyel Hall, Paris) proved that his popularity transcended borders, although the critics were surprised by this out of the ordinary band leader’s stage antics.

With his stage and radio success, it didn’t take Hollywood long to realize the advantages of bringing Cab Calloway to the screen. It started with short films of his songs, but he was soon sharing top billing with Bing Crosby (The Big Broadcast, 1932) and Betty Boop in three cartoons where he is portrayed variously as a walrus, a ghost and an old hermit. His manic gesturing was heaven sent for cartoon animators, who portrayed him in a million guises: as a spider, frog, cricket, pig, cat, rooster and more… All in all, Cab Calloway appeared in over 35 cartoons, making him the most frequently seen black person in animation!

This exploitation went beyond caricature: it concerned the music, too. Benefiting from what black musicians had created, numerous white bands gradually began developing a slightly straiter-laced form of jazz.  It was the acme of Swing, with the rise of the Dorsey Brothers, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman and more…

But his good looks and talent kept Cab Calloway in the spotlight: The Singing Kid (1936) with Al Jolson (the (in)famous black-faced “Jazz Singer”), Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937), Sensations of 1945, Hi de Ho (1947) and above all, Stormy Weather (1943) in which a full cast of black performers brings the history of jazz to life. The latter film starred Bill Robinson, Fats Waller, Lena Horne, and in the grand finale, Cab Calloway, surrounded by the celebrated tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers, in “the most greatest dance number ever filmed” (dixit Fred Astaire).

Tours, revues, shows and studio recording followed at a quick pace, but the end of the war was also the end of the Golden Age of big bands. The rise of be-bop, and audience’s evolving tastes, brought changes to the music scene, and big bands gradually fell out of fashion. The biggest star of the 30s and early 40s was reduced to chasing after gigs. By April 1948, Cab Calloway was the king of hi-de-ho in name only: he was obliged to disband his troupe, and had to go looking for gigs as far afield as Cuba and South America. The showman who once traveled the world with a 50-man orchestra now had just 6 musicians by his side.

Fortunately, the hard times were leavened by occasional successes: in 1952, Calloway was offered the role of Sportin’ Life, in Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. Cab Calloway once again tasted the thrill of packed houses, international tours and top billing. The show enjoyed almost two and a half years of uninterrupted success.

Another eclipse followed that interlude, broken up by touring with the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. He would perform at half-time with just a single pianist. He tried to get back into the spotlight with a show called Cotton Revue 1958, but audiences didn’t materialize. He didn’t give up, and managed to remain a household name thanks to TV appearances and the occasional concert here and there, in the USA and Europe.

The black version of Hello Dolly brought a new state of grace in 1968. The show was a triumph for both Cab Calloway and his old friend Pearl Bailey. Other Broadway musicals gave him top billing again: The Pajama Game – (a flop) (att’n aux parens en vo), Bubbling Brown Sugar… and then it was back to small venues and nightclubs, accompanied by his daughters (Cecelia or Chris).

The late 70s saw a revival for jazzmen from the Golden Age: they were getting recognition once again… but it had to be quick, as they were elderly and starting to pass away! Jazz festivals – especially in Europe – welcomed them, putting them back in the limelight. And so it came to pass that in 1977, Cab Calloway reformed an orchestra with several of his former musicians, playing noteworthy concerts in France, Germany and elsewhere. From then on, he came back almost every year, worshipped by old fans… and new ones, thanks to his role in John Landis’s The Blues Brothers (1980). Suddenly, Cab Calloway was back in the spotlight once again: concerts and tours kept him traveling the world (including Japan). As he had said way back in the 30s, he would only leave the stage feet first! And so it came to pass that Cab Calloway’s final years were spent before adoring audiences, thrilled by an elderly musician who still performed his life-long hits with all the energy of his youth. And of course, the highlight was always Minnie the Moocher, when everyone sang along!

Cab Calloway passed away a few months after a stroke. His farewell concert was performed seated, before an admiring audience.

He was also admired by all those who were influenced and inspired by his talent. From Louis Prima, Louis Jordan, Sammy Davis Jr. and Billy Eckstine, to Prince, Joe Jackson, Janet and Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Alicia Keys, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy… they all acknowledge Cab Calloway as a tremendous artist, a first-class entertainer and a veritable one-man showman. An icon of jazz.

As an angel in a 1937 cartoon (Clean Pastures) Cab Calloway leads the parade, with everyone following behind…