That hi-de-ho man from Baltimore, Cab Calloway, was the ultimate hepcat, the zoot-suited jitterbug who led one of America's most popular orchestras through all of the swing era.
Calloway performed in the hepster's knee-length drape coat, high-top, voluminous, peg pants and wide-brimmed fedora, all usually blazing white, along with the mandatory dangling gold watch chains - while conducting one of the country's finest jazz bands.
Sometimes he nodded slightly toward convention and appeared in white tie and tails. Calloway's persona is said to have been the model for the Sportin' Life character in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Gershwin was a regular at the Cotton Club when Calloway had the house band. And Calloway played Sportin' Life in the 1950 revival that ran for more than three years.
Calloway was a great entertainer who hired great musicians: Doc Cheatum on trumpet; Chu Berry, tenor sax; Cozy Cole, drums; Milt Hinton, bass; Jonah Jones, trumpet; Illinois Jacquet, tenor sax; and even Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet.
He became the reluctant godfather of bebop - he called Gillespie's solos "Chinese music" - and the great-granddaddy of hip-hop. Tupac Shakur cut his own version of "Minnie the Moocher," Calloway's first big hit and his signature tune.
"He was much more than just one of the greatest African-American, or really American, singers ever. Granddad was the best scat singer for about 20 years running," says C. Calloway Brooks, Cab Calloway's grandson, with familial enthusiasm. Scat singing, of course, is jazz vocalise.
"In the '20s, '30s and even into the '40s, there was virtually nobody could touch him as a scat singer. I mean, Louis Armstrong was a good scat singer, but he wasn't like a real improvisational jazz singer like Granddad was."
Brooks will bring his grandfather's music back to Baltimore May 22 when his New York Cotton Club Ensemble plays the final concert of the Eubie Blake Jazz Center's Jammin' at the Mansion series, in the Engineers Club. (The Cold Spring Jazz Quartet, a modern jazz group with Mark Osteen, on sax; Brian Smith, piano; Gary Kerner, bass; and Greg Mack, drums, will perform Friday.)
The singer will perform in a zoot suit, singing, playing guitar and telling stories about his granddad. He'll play with a quartet that includes Joel Martin, the "jazzical" pianist from Salisbury who has played with the Baltimore Symphony; Wally "Gator" Wilson, a longtime drummer with the Lionel Hampton orchestra; and a bass player yet to be named.
