Cabell Calloway III was born on December 25, 1907, in Rochester, New York.He was known as a singer, bandleader, and a dancer. A charming, vibrant performer, Calloway is often associated with the jazz music of the 1930s. Sometimes called the “hi-de-hi-de-ho man,” he perfected the art of scat singing, which uses nonsensical sounds to improvise melodies.
1907 Cab (Cabell) Calloway III was born on Christmas Day in Rochester, NY to Cabell Calloway II, a lawyer, and Martha Eulalia Reed, a teacher and church organist.
1918 The family moves to Baltimore, Maryland, the original home of Cab Calloway’s parents.
1922 Cab Calloway’s mother arranges for him to begin vocal lessons with Ruth Macabee, a former concert singer and family friend. Macabee forbids Calloway to sing jazz.
1924 Cab Calloway enters Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore and studies voice with Llewelyn Wilson where he also excels in sports. Spends his spare time at local speakeasies and jazz clubs. His mentors are Chick Webb (drummer) and Johnny Jones (pianist).
1925 CabCalloway’s older sister Blanche Calloway became a singing and band-leading star in Chicago. Louis Armstrong, Vick Dickenson, Cozy Cole, and Ben Webster all record with “Blanche Calloway and Her Joy Boys”. Cab plays drums in the Chick Webb style and sings with a four piece jazz combo at the clubs Gaiety, Baily’s and Goodlows in a style that includes both Dixieland and straight jazz. Joins “Johnny Jones and his Arabian Tent Orchestra” at the Arabian Tent Club playing the “Baltimore version” of New Orleans Dixieland jazz. Performs in revues and vaudeville shows at his high school and at the Regent Theatre.
1926 Cab Calloway plays basketball with the “Baltimore Athenians” a team of the Negro Professional Basketball League in his senior year of high school.
1927 Cab Graduates from Douglas High School in Baltimore. Joins his sister Blanche in a summer tour of the popular black musical revue “Plantation Days” as tenor in a quartet. Cab in Chicago with Blanche at the close of the show in the fall.
1928 Calloway’s first Chicago nightclub gig is at the “Dreamland Café”, where he plays drums and sings. Cab lands a steady gig performing with Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines at the “Sunset Café”, the Chicago equivalent of the “Cotton Club” in Harlem and becomes the “house” singer. Shares the stage there with Louis Armstrong and the Carroll Dickerson band 5 nights week for 6 months. Cab Calloway takes over at of the “Sunset Café” with club owner Joe Glaser’s encouragement when Louis Armstrong departs for New York.
1929 Cab Calloway Becomes leader of the 11-piece Chicago band the “Alabamians” when Louis Armstrong and Carroll Dickerson leave the “Sunset Café” for “Connie’s Inn” in Harlem. Calloway quits Crane College to pursue his music career. Cab signs with MCA and begins a tour ending at Chick Webb’s “Savoy Ballroom” in Harlem. Calloway is chosen as the favorite bandleader and by the crowd. Cab accepts an offer by Charles Buchanan, the manager of the “Savoy”, to take over as leader of the house band the “Missourians.” Calloway the touring B’way show “Connie’s Hot Chocolate’s” at the Hudson Theatre with the help of his old partner Louis Armstrong who stars in the show. It is here that Cab popularizes Fat’s Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin”, and Cab first noticed by Irving Mills who is in the audience.
1930 Cab Calloway and the Missourians open at the “Cotton Club” to replace the “Duke Ellington Orchestra” while it is on tour. The Calloway debut at the “Cotton Club” is a huge success. The shows are broadcast twice a week on national radio (NBC) and locally on WMCA. Cab is featured as a guest artist on Walter Winchell’s “Lucky Strike” radio program and with Bing Crosby on his show at the “Paramount Theatre.” Cab Calloway breaks the major broadcast network color barrier and becomes a symbol of jazz throughout the country.
1931 Cab Calloway and his band begins its residency at the “Cotton Club”. The name of the band is changed to “Cab Calloway’s Cotton Club Orchestra”. Saxophonist Eddie Barefield joins the band. Cab writes his first big hit and theme song “Minnie the Moocher”. Cab and his band make their first recordings. Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra becomes the first African American Jazz Orchestra to tour the south.
1932 Famed trumpeter Doc Cheatham joins the Cab Calloway Cotton Club Orchestra. Cab is featured in his first film “The Big Broadcast of 1932” by Paramount Pictures, with Bing Crosby, The Mills Brothers and others. Cab is featured in Betty Boop animation short “Minnie the Moocher” by Fleischer Studios. The Orchestra travels and performs throughout the country in ballrooms, theatres, concert halls and clubs as the headlined attraction, breaking box office records nationally.
1933 Calloway is featured in Betty Boop animation shorts “Snow White” and “The Old Man of the Mountain” by Fleischer Studios. Featured in film comedy with WC Fields, “International House” by Paramount Pictures. Stars in musical short “Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho” by Paramount Pictures. Cab names a style of Lindy Hop Dancing “the Jitterbug”
1934 Popularizing the term Jitterbug, Cab stars in musical short “Cab Calloway’s Jitterbug Party” by Paramount Pictures.
1935 Cab Calloway is in film “Great Jazz Bands of the 30’s” by Paramount Pictures.
Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra begins its first tour of Europe. They perform in London, Manchester, Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Brussels and Paris.
1936 Cab Calloway is featured in the Hollywood film “The Singing Kid”, with Al Jolson by Warner Brothers. The most recorded bassist in history, Milt Hinton, joins Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra.
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