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116-538: 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. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in

232-616: A disco version of "Minnie the Moocher" on RCA which reached the Billboard R&;B chart . Calloway was introduced to a new generation when he appeared in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers performing "Minnie the Moocher". In 1985, Calloway and his Orchestra appeared at The Ritz London Hotel where he was filmed for a 60-minute BBC TV show called The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz . Adelaide Hall , Doc Cheatham , Max Roach , and

348-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz

464-561: A dancer in Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935). Calloway made his first Hollywood feature film appearance opposite Al Jolson in The Singing Kid (1936). He sang several duets with Jolson, and the film included Calloway's band and 22 Cotton Club dancers from New York. According to film critic Arthur Knight , the creators of the film intended to "erase and celebrate boundaries and differences, including most emphatically

580-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when

696-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal

812-457: A gliding backstep dance move, which some observers have described as the precursor to Michael Jackson 's moonwalk . Calloway said 50 years later, "it was called The Buzz back then." The 1933 film International House featured Calloway performing his classic song, "Reefer Man", a tune about a man who smokes marijuana . Fredi Washington was cast as Calloway's love interest in Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho (1934). Lena Horne made her film debut as

928-577: A gymnasium, a library, and cafeteria. Since 1954, following the racial integration of Baltimore City public schools, Douglass High has been located on Gwynns Fall Parkway across from "Mondawmin" - the noted city financiers' Alexander and George Brown's estate, one of the last rural country estates in the city, which was shortly after razed and redeveloped as Mondawmin Mall by developer James Rouse (also did "Harborplace" in Inner Harbor in 1979–1980) in

1044-529: A hearing on July 9, 2019, that there is "extensive structural damage" to the Calloway house as well as adjacent ones. The Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation's executive director, however, said that properties in worse condition than the Calloway House have been restored with financial support from a city tax credit program. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan also urged that demolition of

1160-720: A household name due to TV appearances and occasional concerts in the US and Europe. In 1961 and 1962, he toured with the Harlem Globetrotters, providing halftime entertainment during games. Calloway was cast as "Yeller" in the film The Cincinnati Kid (1965) with Steve McQueen , Ann-Margret , and Edward G. Robinson . Calloway appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on March 19, 1967, with his daughter Chris Calloway. In 1967, he co-starred with Pearl Bailey as Horace Vandergelder in an all-black cast of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway during its original run. Chris Calloway also joined

1276-568: A humorous pseudo-gossip column called "Coastin' with Cab" for Song Hits magazine. It was a collection of celebrity snippets, such as the following in the May 1946 issue: " Benny Goodman was dining at Ciro's steak house in New York when a very homely girl entered. 'If her face is her fortune,' Benny quipped, 'she'd be tax-free.'" In the late 1940s, however, Calloway's bad financial decisions and his gambling caused his band to break up. In 1953, he played

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1392-489: A junior-senior high school in East Baltimore. At the time, there was also emphasis on training for industrial jobs. On June 22, 1894, a year before his death, Frederick Douglass gave a commencement address at what would become a namesake school, saying: "The colored people of this country have, I think, made a great mistake, of late, in saying so much of race and color as a basis of their claims to justice, and as

1508-568: A lawyer like his father, so once the tour ended he enrolled at Crane College in Chicago, but he was more interested in singing and entertaining. While at Crane he refused the opportunity to play basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters to pursue a singing career. Calloway spent most of his nights at Chicago's Dreamland Café, Sunset Cafe , and Club Berlin, performing as a singer, drummer, and master of ceremonies. At Sunset Cafe, he

1624-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in

1740-714: 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. In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress . 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

1856-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,

1972-657: A pay cut. In 1952, Calloway was arrested in Leesburg, Virginia on his way to the race track in Charles Town, West Virginia . He was charged with speeding and attempted bribery of a policeman. On June 12, 1994, Calloway suffered a stroke at his home in Westchester County, New York. He died five months later from pneumonia on November 18, 1994, at the age of 86, at a nursing home in Hockessin, Delaware . He

2088-468: A permanent position. The band also performed twice a week for radio broadcasts on NBC . Calloway appeared on radio programs with Walter Winchell and Bing Crosby and was the first African American to have a nationally syndicated radio show. During the depths of the Great Depression , Calloway was earning $ 50,000 a year at 23 years old. In 1931, Calloway recorded his most famous song, " Minnie

2204-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of

2320-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key

2436-588: 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). 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

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2552-430: A site on East Saratoga Street near St. Paul Street (now developed as present-day " Preston Gardens " terraces, named for the former mayor in the five city blocks - north to south - from East Centre Street to East Lexington Streets). This was near and only a few blocks away to the northwest from the former Douglass Institute of 1865 and previous Newton University buildings dating from the 1840s on East Lexington Street (on

2668-598: A vocalist singing " Ain't Misbehavin' " by Fats Waller . While Calloway was performing in the revue, the Missourians asked him to front their band. In 1930, the Missourians became known as Cab Calloway and His Orchestra . At the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York, the band was hired in 1931 to substitute for the Duke Ellington Orchestra while Ellington's band was on tour. Their popularity led to

2784-515: A year. He returned to Brunswick in late 1934 through 1936, then moved to Variety, run by his manager, Irving Mills . He remained with Mills when the label collapsed during the Depression. Their sessions were continued by Vocalion through 1939 and OKeh through 1942. After an AFM recording ban due to the 1942–44 musicians' strike , Calloway continued to record. In 1938, Calloway released Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A " Hepster 's" Dictionary ,

2900-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,

3016-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo

3132-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were

3248-478: Is admonished by his music teacher, "You are not Cab Calloway," after playing an improvised drum riff in the middle of a band lesson. In 1941, Calloway fired Gillespie from his orchestra after an onstage fracas erupted when Calloway was hit with spitballs. He wrongly accused Gillespie, who stabbed Calloway in the leg with a small knife. From 1941 to 1942, Calloway hosted a weekly radio quiz show called The Cab Calloway Quizzicale . Calling himself "Doctor" Calloway, it

3364-491: Is currently run at Saratoga Racecourse, Saratoga Springs, NY, one of America's most popular, premier racetracks. The Cab Calloway Stakes celebrated its 13th renewal on July 24, 2019, and was won by Rinaldi. In 2020 Calloway was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame . Calloway received the following accolades: positions Features Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in

3480-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In

3596-624: Is hip-hop." Journalist Timothy White noted in Billboard (August 14, 1993): "No living pathfinder in American popular music or its jazz and rock 'n' roll capillaries is so frequently emulated yet so seldom acknowledged as Cabell "Cab" Calloway. He arguably did more things first and better than any other band leader of his generation." In 1998, the Cab Calloway Orchestra directed by Calloway's grandson Chris "CB" Calloway Brooks

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3712-558: Is one of Douglass's most notable alumni. After graduating from Douglass in 1926, Marshall went on to college and law school, passing the bar and becoming a lawyer. Representing the NAACP, he successfully challenged school segregation in the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The Supreme Court ruled that segregated, separate but equal , in public education was unconstitutional because it could never truly be equal. Due to residential segregation and changes in

3828-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,

3944-613: The African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around

4060-720: The Apollo Theater , and choreographed the movie Stormy Weather , cast Calloway as the main attraction for his project in Miami. The Cotton Club of Miami featured a troupe of 48 people, including singer Sallie Blair , George Kirby , Abbey Lincoln , and the dance troupe of Norma Miller . The success of the shows led to the Cotton Club Revue of 1957 which had stops at the Royal Nevada Hotel in Las Vegas,

4176-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and

4292-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz

4408-865: The Library of Congress ' National Recording Registry in 2019. In 2022, the National Film Registry selected his home films for preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films". He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the International Jazz Hall of Fame. Cabell Calloway III was born in Rochester, New York , on December 25, 1907, to an African American family. His father, Cabell Calloway Jr., graduated from Lincoln University of Pennsylvania in 1898. His mother, Martha Eulalia Reed,

4524-494: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Greenwood Jazz. In 1992, he embarked on a month-long tour of European jazz festivals. He was booked to headline "The Jazz Connection: The Jewish and African-American Relationship," at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall in 1993, but he pulled out due to a fall at home. In January 1927, Calloway had a daughter named Camay with Zelma Proctor, a fellow student. His daughter

4640-982: The Pimlico racetrack where he developed an interest in racing and gambling on horses. After he was caught playing dice on the church steps, his mother sent him to Downingtown Industrial and Agricultural School in 1921, a reform school run by his mother's uncle in Chester County, Pennsylvania . Calloway resumed hustling when he returned to Baltimore and worked as a caterer while he improved his education in school. He began private vocal lessons in 1922, and studied music throughout his formal schooling. Despite his parents' and teachers' disapproval of jazz , he began performing in nightclubs in Baltimore. His mentors included drummer Chick Webb and pianist Johnny Jones. Calloway joined his high school basketball team, and in his senior year he started playing professional basketball with

4756-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from

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4872-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described

4988-595: The Baltimore Athenians, a team in the Negro Professional Basketball League. He graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1925. In 1927, Calloway joined his older sister, Blanche Calloway , on tour for the popular black musical revue Plantation Days . His sister became an accomplished bandleader before him, and he often credited her as his inspiration for entering show business. Calloway's mother wanted him to be

5104-572: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to

5220-682: The Calloway House be forestalled for its potential preservation as a historic house museum akin to the Louis Armstrong House in New York. Design options for the planned Cab Calloway Square may include an archway from the facade (pictured) as part of the Square's entrance, as proposed by architects working with Baltimore City and the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation, a Non-Profit community oriented group. Despite objections,

5336-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo

5452-542: The Moocher ". It was the first single record by an African American to sell a million copies. Calloway performed the song and two others, " St. James Infirmary Blues " and "The Old Man of the Mountain", in the Betty Boop cartoons Minnie the Moocher (1932), Snow-White (1933), and The Old Man of the Mountain (1933). Calloway performed voice-over for these cartoons, and through rotoscoping , his dance steps were

5568-894: The Nicholas Brothers also appeared on the bill. A performance with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra directed by Erich Kunzel in August 1988 was recorded on video and features a classic presentation of "Minnie the Moocher", 57 years after he first recorded it. In January 1990, Calloway performed at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall , with the Baltimore Symphony . That year he made a cameo in Janet Jackson 's music video " Alright ". He continued to perform at Jazz festivals, including

5684-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and

5800-656: The Theatre Under The Sky in Central Park, Town Casino in Buffalo. For the second season, Lee Sherman was the choreographer of The Cotton Club Revue of 1958, which starred Calloway. The revue featured tap dancing prodigies Maurice Hines and Gregory Hines . In March 1958, Calloway released his album Cotton Club Revue of 1958 on Gone Records . It was produced by George Goldner , conducted and arranged by Eddie Barefield. That year, Calloway appeared in

5916-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in

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6032-412: 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 . Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of

6148-400: The basis of the characters' movements. As a result of the success of "Minnie the Moocher", Calloway became identified with its chorus, gaining the nickname "The Hi De Ho Man". He performed in the 1930s in a series of short films for Paramount . Calloway's and Ellington's groups were featured on film more than any other jazz orchestras of the era. In these films, Calloway can be seen performing

6264-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized

6380-441: The cast as Minnie Fay. The new cast revived the flagging business for the show and RCA Victor released a new cast recording, rare for the time. In 1973–74, Calloway was featured in an unsuccessful Broadway revival of The Pajama Game with Hal Linden and Barbara McNair. His autobiography, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me was published in 1976. It included his complete Hepster's Dictionary as an appendix. In 1978, Calloway released

6496-406: The chief motive of their efforts and action. I have always attached more importance to manhood than to mere identity with any variety of the human family..." "We should never forget that the ablest and most eloquent voices ever raised in behalf of the black man's cause were the voices of white men. Not for race, not for color, but for men and for manhood they labored, fought, and died. Away, then, with

6612-489: The color line...when Calloway begins singing in his characteristic style – in which the words are tools for exploring rhythm and stretching melody – it becomes clear that American culture is changing around Jolson and with (and through) Calloway". Calloway's band recorded for Brunswick and the ARC dime-store labels (Banner, Cameo, Conqueror, Perfect, Melotone, Banner, Oriole) from 1930 to 1932, when he signed with RCA Victor for

6728-459: The concert. Todd said he was informed by the manager, who did not recognize Calloway, that they were attempting to enter. He claimed they refused to leave and struck him. Calloway and Payne denied his claims and maintained they had been sober; the charges were dismissed. In February 1946, six civil rights organizations, including the NAACP , demanded that Todd be fired, but he had already resigned after

6844-457: The demographics of Baltimore, as of 2008 the overwhelming majority of students at Douglass were African American and many were poor. It was one of the eleven lowest performing schools in the state of Maryland. Named the "Colored High and Training School", Douglass was founded in 1883 for black students in Baltimore, as the school system was racially segregated. The first site was the former Peale's Baltimore Museum . Six years later it moved to

6960-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within

7076-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in

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7192-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as

7308-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",

7424-673: The film St. Louis Blues , the life story of W.C. Handy , featuring Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt . The Cotton Club Revue of 1959 traveled to South America for engagements in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo . They also stopped in Uruguay and Argentina before returning to North America which included a run on Broadway . Directed by Mervyn Nelson and choreographed by Joel Nobel, this edition featured Ketty Lester , The Three Chocolateers. The revue toured Europe in 1959 and 1960, bringing their act to Madrid , Paris , and London . Calloway remained

7540-404: The film Stormy Weather , one of the first mainstream Hollywood films with a black cast. The film featured other top performers of the time, including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Lena Horne, the Nicholas Brothers , and Fats Waller. Calloway would host Horne's character Selina Rogers as she performed the film's title song as part of a big all-star revue for World War II soldiers. Calloway wrote

7656-526: The first dictionary published by an African American. It became the official jive language reference book of the New York Public Library . A revised version of the book was released with Professor Cab Calloway's Swingformation Bureau in 1939. He released the last edition, The New Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary: Language of Jive, in 1944. On a BBC Radio documentary about the dictionary in 2014, Poet Lemn Sissay stated, "Cab Calloway

7772-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in

7888-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired

8004-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In

8120-496: The high school was constructed of red brick and limestone trim, in the English Tudor / Jacobethan style, on the intersection at Calhoun and Baker Streets, but without a surrounding campus but facing directly on surrounding sidewalks. The new building was dedicated as "Frederick Douglass High School", the school had been using the new name for at least two years previously. For the first time in Baltimore, black students had

8236-416: The high school, is across the street . In 2008, Frederick Douglass High School was the subject of an HBO documentary: Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card, directed by Oscar award-winning filmmakers Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond. They shot the film during the 2004 - 2005 school year, highlighting its history and its academic and financial struggles while working to comply with

8352-754: The house was razed on September 5, 2020. In 1985, Town Supervisor Anthony F. Veteran issued a proclamation, declaring a ''Cab Calloway Day'' in Greenburgh, New York . In 1990, Calloway was presented with the Beacons in Jazz Award from The New School in New York City. New York City Mayor David Dinkins proclaimed the day "Cab Calloway Day". In 1992, the Cab Calloway School of the Arts

8468-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,

8584-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in

8700-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to

8816-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in

8932-900: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville

9048-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement

9164-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in

9280-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for

9396-712: The nonsense that a man must be black to be true to the rights of black men." In 1900, the high and technical school moved from East Saratoga Street near St. Paul Street to a building in the northwest city on the corner of Dolphin Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1900, the Baltimore City Public Schools system had initiated a one-year training course for African-American elementary school teachers, later known as Coppin State University , an HBCU Historically Black Colleges and Universities

9512-508: The north side - between North Calvert Street and North Street [now Guilford Avenue]) which famed Frederick Douglass (1808-1895), who lived in this city during the 1830s, spoke at its dedication. The new high school for young Black Baltimoreans was the only one for African-Americans students in the City of Baltimore for three decades until Paul Laurence Dunbar High School was built and opened in 1931 on North Caroline Street (off Orleans Street) as

9628-404: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides

9744-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of

9860-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which

9976-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of

10092-458: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has

10208-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman

10324-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed

10440-623: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became

10556-645: The previous Western High School building and extensive landscaped campus, constructed in 1927–1928. (This building is a twin of the old Eastern High School building on East 33rd Street and Loch Raven Boulevard on the opposite side of the city in Northeast Baltimore, across from The Baltimore City College - the famous landmark - "Castle on the Hill"). The campus of Coppin State College (now Coppin State University ), which had long been located at

10672-532: The prominent role of Sportin' Life in a production of Porgy and Bess with William Warfield and Leontyne Price as the title characters. Calloway and his daughter Lael recorded "Little Child", an adaption of " Little Boy and the Old Man ". Released on ABC-Paramount , the single charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1956. In 1956, Clarence Robinson, who produced revues at the original Cotton Club and

10788-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in

10904-535: The rest of that block with a park to be named Cab Calloway Legends Park in his honor. Family members and the National Trust for Historic Preservation advocated preservation of the house, however, as a significant artifact of African-American cultural heritage. Although the block is designated "historically significant" on the National Register of Historic Places , Baltimore City officials said at

11020-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by

11136-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from

11252-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding

11368-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were

11484-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing

11600-569: The world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were

11716-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take

11832-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from

11948-476: Was a Morgan State College graduate, teacher, and church organist, and worked as a lawyer and in real estate. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland , in 1919. Soon after, his father died and his mother remarried to John Nelson Fortune. Calloway grew up in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Druid Hill. He often skipped school to earn money by selling newspapers, shining shoes, and cooling down horses at

12064-566: Was a parody of The College of Musical Knowledge , a radio contest created by bandleader Kay Kyser . During the years of World War II , Calloway entertained troops in United States before they departed overseas. The Calloway Orchestra also recorded songs full of social commentary including "Doing the Reactionary," "The Führer 's Got the Jitters," "The Great Lie," "We'll Gather Lilacs," and "My Lament for V Day." In 1943, Calloway appeared in

12180-484: Was an Episcopalian . In December 1945, Calloway and his friend Felix H. Payne Jr. were beaten by a police officer, William E. Todd, and arrested in Kansas City, Missouri after attempting to visit bandleader Lionel Hampton at the whites-only Pla-Mor Ballroom. They were taken to the hospital for injuries, then charged with intoxication and resisting arrest. When Hampton learned of the incident he refused to continue

12296-588: Was an understudy for singer Adelaide Hall . There he met and performed with Louis Armstrong , who taught him to sing in the scat style. He left school to sing with the Alabamians band. In 1929, Calloway relocated to New York with the band. They opened at the Savoy Ballroom on September 20, 1929. When the Alabamians broke up, Armstrong recommended Calloway as a replacement singer in the musical revue Connie's Hot Chocolates . He established himself as

12412-414: Was formed. In 2009, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy released an album covering Calloway's music titled How Big Can You Get?: The Music of Cab Calloway . In 2012, Calloway's legacy was celebrated in an episode of PBS 's American Masters titled "Cab Calloway: Sketches". In 2019, plans were announced to demolish Calloway's boyhood home at 2216 Druid Hill Avenue in Baltimore, replacing the abandoned structure and

12528-409: Was founded at Douglass High School as a normal school (earlier name for a teachers' training school). In 1907, Coppin was appointed its own principal and formally separated from the high school. By 1938, Coppin had developed a four-year curriculum and the college began to grant Bachelor of Science degrees. The high school moved in 1925 to its third location, a new building specifically designed for

12644-609: Was founded in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1994, Calloway's daughter Camay Calloway Murphy founded the Cab Calloway Museum at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland. The New York Racing Association (NYRA) annually honors the jazz legend, a native of Rochester, N.Y., with a stakes races restricted to NY-bred three-year-olds, as part of their New York Stallion Series. First run in 2003, The Calloway has since undergone various distance and surface changes. The race

12760-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in

12876-840: Was one of the first African-Americans to teach in a white school in Virginia. Calloway married his first wife Wenonah "Betty" Conacher in July 1928. They adopted a daughter named Constance and divorced in 1949. Calloway married Zulme "Nuffie" MacNeal on October 7, 1949. They lived in Long Beach on the South Shore of Long Island, New York , on the border with neighboring Lido Beach . In the 1950s, Calloway moved his family to Westchester County, New York , where he and Nuffie raised their daughters Chris Calloway (1945–2008), Cecilia "Lael" Eulalia Calloway, and Cabella Calloway (1952–2023). Calloway

12992-496: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Frederick Douglass High School (Baltimore, Maryland) Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993)

13108-490: Was survived by his wife, who died in 2008, five daughters, and seven grandsons. Calloway was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York . Music critics have written of his influence on later generations of entertainers such as James Brown , Michael Jackson , Janet Jackson , as well as modern-day hip-hop performers. John Landis , who directed Calloway in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers , stated, "Cab Calloway

13224-410: Was taking ownership of language for a people who, just a few generations before, had their own languages taken away." Calloway's band in the 1930s and 1940s included many notable musicians, such as Ben Webster , Illinois Jacquet , Milt Hinton , Danny Barker , Doc Cheatham , Ed Swayze , Cozy Cole , Eddie Barefield , and Dizzy Gillespie . Calloway later recalled, "What I expected from my musicians

13340-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and

13456-515: Was what I was selling: the right notes with precision, because I would build a whole song around a scat or dance step." Calloway and his band formed baseball and basketball teams. They played each other while on the road, play against local semi-pro teams, and play charity games. His renown as a talented musician was such that, in the opening scene of the 1940 musical film Strike Up the Band , starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland , Rooney's character

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