1927–1929: Early career In 1927, Calloway joined his older sister,
Blanche Calloway, on tour for the popular black musical revue
Plantation Days. Calloway's mother wanted him to be 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. 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''. While Calloway was performing in the revue,
the Missourians asked him to front their band.
1930–1955: Success 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 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. 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 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 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 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". In 1938, Calloway released ''Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A "
Hepster's" Dictionary
, 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 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 was what I was selling: the right notes with precision, because I would build a whole song around a scat or dance step." They played each other while on the road, played against local semi-pro teams, and played charity games. 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 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 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 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 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 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.
1961–1993: Later years Calloway remained 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. He 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 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 a disco version of "Minnie the Moocher" on RCA Victor which reached the Billboard'' R&B chart. 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 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. == Personal life ==