Here is one of the little-known aspects of Cab Calloway. Indeed, while he is a recognized singer, few of you know that he began his career as a singing drummer. But he also played the saxophone, at least until Chu Berry forbade him to…
Drummer and singer at the same time
As Cab specifies in his autobiography, his beginnings as a singer took place under the influence of the musicians of Baltimore. One of them was Chick WEBB, one of the great drummers whom more than one considers at the origin of swing. Cab observed him for many evenings in the twenties, before he became a national figure. While he was only 17 years old, Cab combined his studies, basketball at a quasi-professional level, and naturally singing in the clubs of Baltimore. This allowed him to earn enough money to lead the good life and put some aside for his family.
In fact, the part of Cab’s career as a singer and drummer arose from a combination of circumstances. While he was talking with friends (no doubt a few local small-time toughs), a guy joined them and announced that he had a small orchestra of four musicians. The problem was that their drummer was in trouble and that he had to be replaced quickly. Cab stepped forward and announced that he could do it. Of course, he had never played drums, and his only experience in the field was his observation of Chick Webb’s playing. The guy and Cab went to rent a set on Howard Street (one almost feels as if one is in the Blues Brothers, no?) and they joined the rehearsal. Cab then played the rhythms as he had heard them. The following evening the second rehearsal took place. They went straight on to their first show. As Cab admits, he was not a terrific drummer (one would have guessed as much…), but he then said: “Don’t worry about the drums. I’ll get up to sing, that way the audience won’t notice a thing!”
For a first attempt, it was a resounding success: they stayed there two months, then settled into another club in Baltimore. There again, Cab had a stroke of genius in his own way by proposing to lead the group, so as to bring in more money. Himself a local small-time tough, Cab had a few connections that allowed him to obtain concert dates in Baltimore. It was the opportunity for this nameless group to practice Dixieland and the jazz that one was beginning to call “hot”.
This was above all the moment that decided Cab to spend the rest of his existence in show business.
(behind the drums he plays with the band, Cab is not on saxophone
but is holding a megaphone for his singing part)
Cab left his group to join the local star, Johnny JONES and his Arabian Tent Orchestra, which played in the eponymous club. The particularity of the pianist Johnny Jones had six fingers on each hand, which – you can certainly imagine – must have given a certain cachet to his solos… In this orchestra of ten musicians, Cab held the drummer’s chair for several months, haunting the clubs of Baltimore.
(at the Earle Theater, The Philadelphia Enquirer, April 2, 1933)
Afterwards, he was never seen again on the drums (except in the photo above dating from the very beginning of the 1930s)… Yet another drummer, Tommy BENFORD, questioned in the framework of Hank O’Neal’s Ghosts of Harlem, declares him to be worthless:
“The one guy that I never worked with was Cab Calloway. I just couldn’t see that man. He wanted to tell me how to play my drums, and he didn’t know anything about drumming. I used to tell the guys, ‘You guys are really suckers to let a man like that tell you what to do.’ I never could understand about Cab Calloway.”
It must be said that a few fine sticks succeeded one another in his orchestra: Leroy Maxey, Cozy Cole, J.C. Heard, Buford Oliver, Panama Francis…
Saxophonist? No way!
It is thanks to his first wife, Betty, that Cab took saxophone lessons in Chicago in 1929 with one of the Brown brothers. At that time, he was a singer at the Sunset Café and was beginning to make a good local reputation, notably because he was the M.C. of the most fashionable club in Chicago, but also because he was at the head of the house orchestra, the Alabamians.
During his career, Cab apparently played the saxophone during performances. I personally know of no recording of it (yet Alyn Shipton, in his biography of Cab Calloway, believes that Cab would play the second alto sax on the Alabamians recordings). Be that as it may, Cab talks about it in his autobiography, saying that from time to time he treated himself to the luxury of a solo, even if he was conscious of not being a real saxophonist. The musicians must no doubt have played along (as he was the boss, he had the right!), at least until the arrival of Chu Berry in the orchestra in 1937. Indeed, arriving straight from Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, Leon ‘Chu’ Berry, who was to replace Ben Webster, who had left for Duke Ellington, imposed his condition: “As long as I am in your orchestra, never play that damn saxophone again!” And one therefore never again heard Cab practice the reed while shaking his hips.
By the way, here is a new instrument in Cab’s hands… What was he doing at the piano that evening? To find out more (and also to discover what Duke was doing on the guitar), read the note on the splendid photographic work of Charles PETERSON.
