Watch a preview:

Emmy^®-winning filmmaker Gail Levin explores Cab Calloway’s musical beginnings and milestones in the context of the Harlem Renaissance and segregationist America using archival footage, animation based on caricatures by famed illustrator Steve Brodner and French cartoonist Cabu, and interviews. The animated Cab dances alongside Matthew Rushing, choreographer/principal dancer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Uptown), who explains how modern Calloway’s movements were and his impact on hip-hop. Additional interviewees include Calloway’s daughters Cecelia and Camay; grandson and Cab Calloway Orchestra bandleader Chris “Calloway” Brooks; horn player Gerald Wilson; and The Blues Brothers (1980) director John Landis and band members Steve Cropper, Lou Marini and Donald “Duck” Dunne. The film introduced Cab and his music to a new generation, when he acted and performed as The Blues Brothers’s mentor, Curtis.

“I am especially delighted to bring Cab Calloway to younger audiences – and he does become quite alive through the inventive animation in this film,” says Susan Lacy, American Masters series creator and executive producer. “He, and his era, are such a vital part of our musical cultural heritage – and such an energetic one!”

“This film is not just another biopic in the sense of interviews and recollections, but a reinvigoration of the whole Calloway presence – a reprise of a timeless virtuoso,” adds Levin.

With The Cotton Club – where Blacks could perform but not attend – as his home stage, Cab became a star of New York’s jazz scene, and then a household name with his signature song “Minnie the Moocher.” Despite its tragic, taboo subject matter, the song broke into the mainstream and was even used in Max and Dave Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoon of the same name, along with Cab’s dance moves. Breaking the color barrier with this “hi de ho” hit, Cab was one of the first Black musicians to tour the segregationist South. He published a Hepster’s Dictionary of his jive slang in 1938, starred in films including Stormy Weather (1943) with Lena Horne and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and played Sportin’ Life – a role George Gershwin modeled on him – in a 1952 touring production of Porgy and Bess, making “It Ain’t Necessarily So” an enduring part of his brand. With his zany theatricality – scat singing, jive talking, zoot suit wearing, straight-hair, head-shaking, and backslide dance (a precursor to Michael Jackson’s moonwalk) – Cab transcended racial specificity on his own terms.

In 2011, American Masters earned its eighth Emmy^® Award for Outstanding Primetime Nonfiction Series in 11 years. Now in its 26^th season, the series is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21, New York’s public television stations, and operator of NJTV. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local documentaries and other programs to the New York community.

Cab Calloway: Sketches is a co-production of Artline Films, ARTE France, and AVRO, in association with Inscape Productions and THIRTEEN’s American Masters for WNET. Gail Levin is director and executive producer for Inscape Productions. Jean-François Pitet and Gail Levin are co-writers. Olivier Mille is producer for Artline Films. Susan Lacy is the series creator and executive producer of American Masters. This program is made possible in part by the support of CNC, PROCIREP, ANGOA, and SACEM.

American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for American Masters is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Jack Rudin, Vital Projects Fund, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers.

Her first dream was to be a dancer. Growing up in New York, she was inspired by “Snake Hips” Tucker, studying his serpentine moves and practicing them constantly with friends. Then, one fateful night at the Apollo Theater in 1934, the headlining Edwards Sisters brought down the house with their dancing. Amateur Hour began immediately after, and a 16-year-old Ella Fitzgerald stepped on stage, but was too intimidated to dance. Instead, she sang “Judy,” silenced the awestruck crowd, and won first prize. It was the beginning of one of the most celebrated careers in music history.

Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917, Ella Fitzgerald moved with her mother to New York after the death of her father. Living in Yonkers, Fitzgerald attended public school, where she sang in the glee club and received her musical education. After her early success at the Apollo, and as a popular performer at a number of other amateur venues, Fitzgerald was invited to join Chick Webb’s band. Within a short while she was the star attraction, and had made a number hits including her trademark “A-tisket, A-tasket” (1938). After Webb’s death in 1939, Fitzgerald led the band for three years.

During her time with Webb’s band, Fitzgerald recorded with a number of other musicians, including Benny Goodman. By the time she began her solo career in the mid-1940s, she was a well-respected figure throughout the music industry. Her vibrant and energetic voice showed an exceptional range and control. Performing with “Jazz at the Philharmonic,” her popularity grew beyond the music world. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she continued to perform as a jazz musician, but concentrated primarily on popular music. Rivaled only by Frank Sinatra, her recordings of work by Cole Porter, Ira and George Gershwin, and Rogers and Hart were incredibly successful.

One of the early “scat” performers, Fitzgerald found a place among the growing jazz innovators, making recordings with such greats as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. Her true genius, however, was not formal innovation or deeper expression, but artistic renderings of the enthusiastic songs of her time. “I’m very shy, and I shy away from people,” Ella once said. “But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling. I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.” More than anything, it is this love of performing that won her the hearts of millions throughout the world.

By the 1970s, she was performing with a trio headed by pianist Tommy Flanagan, and regularly with dozens of different symphony orchestras. Though her voice was not what it had been, Fitzgerald’s enthusiasm and charisma continued to excite crowds well into the 1980s. After a successful appearance in the United Kingdom in 1990, she retired due to ailing health. Two years later President Ronald Reagan awarded her the National Medal of Honor. Suffering continued health problems, Fitzgerald spent the last few years of her life in her Beverly Hills home. On June 15, 1996 she died at the age of seventy-eight.

Of Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis said, “She was the best there ever was. Amongst all of us who sing, she was the best.” From those early days on Harlem streets to the upper stratosphere of musical fame, Ella Fitzgerald’s life was the quintessential American success story. Through fifty-eight years of performing, thirteen Grammys and more than forty million records sold, she elevated swing, bebop, and ballads to their highest potential. She was, undeniably, the First Lady of Song.

His passion was music and his big band sound quickened the pulse of a generation ready to shrug off the Depression and dance. With clarinet in hand, Benny Goodman was transformed from a child in Chicago’s impoverished Jewish ghetto into the king of swing, greeted with near pandemonium wherever his band played. Goodman led jazz into the commercial mainstream and brought with him an extraordinary group of gifted and original musicians. Band members Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton were some of the first to break the big band color barrier. Held together by the force of Goodman’s personality and a willingness to put their music above all else, the Benny Goodman Band created a kingdom of swing with enthusiastic fans from coast to coast.

It could have been a far different life, had destiny not intervened. Struggling to raise a family of eleven on sweatshop wages, Benny Goodman’s father believed music might be a ticket out of poverty for his eldest sons. He enrolled them in free music classes at a local synagogue when Benny was just ten. His older brothers were given a tuba and a trombone, but Benny, the smallest, got a clarinet. From the outset, he was a prodigy of unmistakable talent. As a youth, he had frequented the jazz halls on the south side of Chicago, soaking in some of the greatest musicianship in the world. By the time he was fifteen, Goodman had dropped out of school and already established himself as a professional musician. It was then that the Ben Pollack Orchestra asked him to move to California and join the band.

Goodman spent the late 1920s and early 1930s traveling the country playing in bands led by Red Nichols, Ben Selvin, and many others. In 1934, he got his first big break. Putting together his own band for a local venue that was prematurely shut down, Goodman found a spot headlining on a new NBC radio program called LET’S DANCE. Broadcast live from New York from 10:30 in the evening to 4:30 in the morning, the west coast was just tuning in as Goodman’s band let loose in the wee hours. These regular performances created a nationwide audience for his big band sound, and it was this audience that would eventually go wild for the Benny Goodman Band in live performances at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the Congress Hotel in Chicago, and the Paramount Theater in New York. His musical achievement reached its pinnacle in 1938, when his band blew the lid off of Carnegie Hall (the live recording of which was to become one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time).

By the 1940s, the sound of swing, which had been an all-pervasive part of American culture, began to fade as many musicians began experimenting with new jazz forms. With the rise in popularity of beebop, came the virtual eclipse of big band and swing. Though no longer in as great demand, Benny Goodman continued to play the clarinet, forming and fronting big bands. As an exceptionally dedicated musician and bandleader, Goodman was a major force in the popularity of swing, making a home for dozens of great musicians, including Fletcher Henderson, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Mel Powell, Peggy Lee, Wardell Grey, and Stan Getz. In his later years, he turned to classical music, and in June of 1986 he died while playing the clarinet (a Brahms sonata) in his New York home. To this day, Goodman’s music continues to find its audience among the young and old alike.