Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway ReviewAt the start of the `30s, bassist Gene Ramey played on a band that competed against singer-dancer-bandleader Cab Calloway's group in a "battle of the bands." At the end of the first set, Ramey was pretty certain the band he played with would win. Then the second set began. Here's Ramey describing Calloway's performance:
When Calloway came on for the second set he made a remarkable entry, leaping over chairs, turning somersaults, and indulging in all manners of non-musical showmanship, all the while singing . . . in his most eccentric manner. This so won over the audience that [Ramey's band] didn't dare go on again.
The great bop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who played in Cab's orchestras until Cab fired him for one too man shenanigans, declared that "Cab was no musician." And when Calloway recruited Chu Berry to play tenor for him, Berry famously agreed on the condition that Calloway would promise never to play alto sax on stage again while Chu was in the band.
I've been a jazz enthusiast since I was thirteen, sixty-one years ago. Cab Calloway has always figured in my imagination as a hack --maybe a good popular entertainer but certainly not a figure to take seriously in jazz. I admired the way he looked -always impeccably dressed, whether in the zoot suits he helped popularize or his classy all--white tuxedo, with over-long tails and white bowtie, shoes and socks. Though I didn't take it seriously (apparently neither did he all the time), I loved his `jive' talk. (In 1944, his lexicon of hipsterese, The New Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary, appeared, but it was more of a publicity stunt than anything serious.)
On the evidence of this well researched and well written biography, though, Calloway deserves much more credit than I've given him. Maybe he couldn't play an instrument that well and he was a mediocre conductor, but he was an exceptional though mannered singer who improvised fluently on the fringe between jazz vocalese and show biz clowning; he was also a very good bandmaster who paid attention to all of the details of the music his band produced and steadily improved the quality of its performance as a functioning jazz band in the 30s and early 40s. He may have fired Dizzy, but first he hired him and then he gave him solo room in his band (thought less with itme3 as he became disenchanted with his clowning and the outré music he produced as he moved rapidly into the new musical realm of bop). The list of notables who played in his very popular band at one time or another is impressive: tenor sax players Ben Webster, Chu Berry, Illinois Jacquet, Ike Quebec, and Sam `the Man' Taylor, altoist Hilton Jefferson, trumpeter Jonah Jones, trombonist Keg Johnson (Budd Johnson's brother), multi-instrumentalist Tyree Glenn (trombone, vibes, vocals...), bassist Milt Hinton and drummers Cozy Cole and J. C. Heard. That's not shabby! Most of his bandsmen seemed to appreciate him and not all complained about lack of solo time, or the grueling schedule of performances they play (up to four shows a night), or having to play the same songs night after night, or the monotony of backing Cab's vocals. Not all of them condemned his musicianship either.
In later life, Calloway rebounded from the death of the Big Bands and recreated himself, first as front man for small combos (usually Cab on vocals, Jonah Jones on trumpet and a rhythm section) and then as a stage performer. He soared in the Leontyne Price-Paul Warfield production of Porgy and Bess and later in the all-black staging of Hello Dolly, in which he outshone even Pearl Bailey. In the 70s, he had a cameo in The Blues Brothers and appeared on Sesame Street. THe long and the short of it is that Cab Calloway was still at it up until almost his death, and that's encouraging too!
Shipton brings impeccable credentials to this book. He is jazz critic for the London Times, has written A New History of Jazz and Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie. He ascends to hyperbole a little too often for my comfort, as when at the end of the book, he claims Calloway as the possible inspiration for today's hip-hop. But this is a small cavil about a generally admirable, and genuinely enjoyable, book.Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway Overview

Want to learn more information about Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now