This Day in History: Jazz Legend Cab Calloway Born in 1907

On Dec. 25, 1907, legendary jazz musician and bandleader Cabell “Cab” Calloway was born in Rochester, New York. Raised in Baltimore, Calloway left law school in the 1920s to sing with the Alabamians, launching a career that led him to Chicago’s thriving jazz scene and eventually to Harlem’s famed Cotton Club.

Orchestra leader Cab Calloway looks pleased with the play-back of his first 1947 recording session with his newly-organized band, in the control room at Columbia Studios, in New York, March 12, 1947. (AP Photo/Bob Wands)

During the 1930s big band era, Calloway’s charismatic stage presence and distinctive scat singing style electrified audiences. He recorded iconic hits such as “Minnie the Moocher,” “Kickin’ the Gong Around,” “Moon Glow,” and “The Jumpin’ Jive.”

Cab Calloway swings into a lively version of his trademark song “Minnie the Moocher” during “Cab Calloway’s Cotton Club Revisited” musical review in Chicago, Ill., Friday, Nov. 2, 1985. The show is making a six-week, 15-city tour that closes in Louisville, Ky., on Sunday. (AP Photo/Charles Knoblock)

Calloway continued to perform well into the late twentieth century, captivating new audiences and inspiring generations before his passing on November 18, 1994, at the age of 88.


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