Hi-De-Ho Man!

Several months ago I reviewed Duke Ellington’s “Symphony in Black” (1937) a classical piece of Jazz Americana and recipient of the first Academy Award awarded to a black entertainer. Duke, however, was not the only black musician that was involved with film during this era.

Hi-De-Ho Man
Cab Calloway and His Orchestra


His contemporary and big band leader Cabell "Cab" Calloway III, a master of the energetic style of scat singing that Calloway learned from Louis Armstrong, also had a hand in making some great films.

His band featured solo performers and great sidemen, including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton.


Cab was born in a middle-class family in Rochester, New York, on Christmas Day 1907. He lived there until 1918, when his parents moved their family to Baltimore. They recognized their son's musical talent. He began private voice lessons in 1922. Despite his parents' and vocal teachers' disapproval of jazz, Calloway began frequenting and eventually performing in many of Baltimore's jazz clubs, where he was mentored by drummer Chick Webb and pianist Johnny Jones.

By the end of the 1920’s, Cab’s main interest was in singing and entertaining, and he spent most of his nights at the Dreamland Ballroom, the Club Berlin and the Sunset Cafe, performing as a drummer, singer and emcee. It was at the Sunset Cafe that he met and performed with Louis Armstrong who taught him to sing in the "scat" style.


By the 1930's, New York City’s “The Cotton Club”, was the hottest jazz venue in the country. Cab Calloway and his Orchestra were hired as a replacement for the Duke Ellington and His Orchestra while they were touring. Calloway quickly proved so popular that he too was soon touring when not at the Cotton Club. Their popularity was greatly enhanced by the twice-weekly live NBC national radio broadcasts at the Cotton Club.

In 1931, he recorded his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher". That song, "St. James Infirmary Blues," and "The Old Man Of The Mountain" were performed for the Betty Boop animated shorts. He took advantage of this and timed his concerts in some communities with the release of the films in order to make the most of the attention. Here is that Betty Boop animated short film, “Minnie the Moocher”


As a result of the success of "Minnie the Moocher," Cab became identified with its chorus, gaining the nickname "The Hi De Ho Man". In 1934, Paramount produced the following ten-minute short film called “Hi-De-Ho.”


Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho is a ten-minute Paramount musical short from 1934. The short story involves jive-master jazz performer Cab Calloway as he travels by train on his way to the Cotton Club. Features performances with his full orchestra, including the famous call-and-response song of the title

During the 1930s both Calloway and Ellington were featured on film more than any other jazz orchestra of the era. In 1933, Cab’s classic song about marijuana, "Reefer Man," was featured in another Paramount film.

Calloway helped establish the Cab Calloway Museum at Coppin State College in Baltimore in the 1980's. Bill Cosby helped establish a scholarship in Calloway's name at the New School of Social Research New York City. In 1994, a creative and performing arts school, the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, was dedicated in his name in Wilmington, Delaware.

Cab the consummate entertainer continued to perform right up until May 1994 when he suffered a stroke. He died six months later on November 18, 1994. He was 86.

Hope you enjoyed the Hi-De-Ho Man!

Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
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Resource Sources
Wikipedia