On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *Jumpin’ And Jivin’, Indeed- All Out In The Age Of The Big Bands

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Cab Calloway performing "Minnie The Moocher".

DVD Review

Jumping& Jivin’: The Jazz Classics From The Big Band Era, Volume One, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, Fats Waller and various other bandleaders and sidemen, Acorn Media, 2007.

I recently reviewed the work, in his prime in the 1960s, of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. There I noted that my interest in jazz, as such, was at the many places where jazz and the blues intersect. This volume of jazz- centered music from the big band era of the 1940s is a prime example of that statement. Not all of the twenty plus “soundies” (the old time version of MTV-type music videos for the benefit of the younger reader) from the 1940s and early 1950s here derives from the blues but a good number do. The compilers of this DVD have put, in one place at one time, many of the best big bands from that era, including Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine and Count Basie. The production values on some of the material is not great but you are getting this for its look at cultural history, warts and all.

Moreover, there are two performers who perked my interest from the blues perspective. One was the incredible performances of Mr. Cab Calloway in his classic “Minnie The Moocher” and the, well, bluesy “Blues In The Night”. I last recall seeing old Cab in the original John Belushi “Blues Brothers” film from the 1980s. That was nothing compared to these performances in his prime. Watch this. The other outstanding performance here is from Lena Horne. Yes, I know, I am supposed to be true-blue to Ms. Billie Holiday. And I am. Except last year I heard Lena doing “Stormy Weather” on a 1940s CD compilation and was blown away. Here on her “soundie” “Unlucky Woman” she does so again. So call me perfidious, okay.

"Minnie the Moocher" -Cab Calloway

folk's here's the story 'bout Minnie the Moocher
she was a red hot hoochie coocher
she was the roughest, toughest frail
but Minnie had a heart a big as a whale

(hidey-hi's!)

she messed around with a bloke named Smokey
she loved him, though he was coke-y
he took her down to Chinatown
and he showed her how to kick the gong around

(hidey-hi's!)

she had a dream about the King of Sweden
he gave her things that she was needin'
gave her a home built of gold and steel
a diamond car, with the platinum wheels

(fast hidey-hi's!)

he gave her a townhouse and his racing horses
each meal she ate was a dozen courses
she had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes
she sat around and counted them a million times

(hidey-hi's, one mo' 'gain!)

poor min, poor min, poor min!


"Unlucky Woman"

I was born on Friday, married on Friday too
Yes I was born on Friday, married on Friday too
But I didn't believe in jinxes till the day that I met you

I don't want no more lovin', I'd rather be all alone
No i don't want no more lovin', I'd rather be all alone
So when payday comes around, I can call my money my own

Now love is just a gamble, it's just like shootin' dice
But it's my bad luck that I got snake eyes twice
I'm an unlucky woman, guess I was born that way
And if anyone can change me, they can move right in today

I don't want no more excuses, I don't want no jive
I wouldn't want you daddy if you was the last man alive
I've learned my lesson, and I've learned it just in time
Good luck will never find me, till I cross you off my mind

From The When The Blues Is Dues Series- When Cab Calloway Held Forth

… he, Cab Calloway he, all long and lanky, all square shoulders (maybe a little padded to enhance that square shoulders to carry the world effect) to march up and down the musical world, all slip step this way and that way, all, slo-mo jitterbug , all sandman back step, back step, back step, front step, front step, front step, then some more slo-mo jitterbug just a little bit faster, a quick pause for some hip-hop, hip-hop hippest hop ho, then back again, forward, fix the gelled hair, flip around to conduct some be-bop band business, then flip again, shoulders, or rather right shoulder turning on a pivot to swing through that left shoe, a very slight pause while the reefer kicks in (legal then, legal as hell so don’t get your dander up), then back, back, back, a couple of twists, a half summersault, some old time gymnast move, learned, learned maybe in seventh grade gym class, or someplace like that, certainly not at mother-sent Miss Prissy’s Saturday morning dance class, no way, and then a finale, a double, triple axel loop-the-loop worthy of an Olympic ice queen, then the handkerchief, the well-deserved handkerchief , to wipe off the sweat, the dust , the dope, the last scotch and whatever else exploded. He swore, he swore on seven bibles he stole the whole routine from the late Michael Jackson...

The camera focuses on the stage and one sees a few rows of musicians, mostly black, all male, filling up some old time ballroom chairs, working mainly to get those horns, sexy saxes, trombones, drums, violins and every other musical instrument known to a big band sound in tune, ready for the boss man to do his wild man run through. The night before last it was the Kit Kat Club in Moline, last night The Hi Hat in Decatur, tonight, ah, tonight’s (hell, Joe, where are we anyway?), oh yah, The Strutter’s in Davenport and since this is new territory Cab wants the stuff to be purr-perfection for the local Mayfair swells who will drink enough whiskey and scotch to make sure they get paid. The farther from Chi town Cab and the boys got, the whiter the crowd, no question, but the better the dough because those white breads had hollow legs, they loved their liquor (and after looking at some of the dames, not all, not all at all, you would need a battleship full to make it through the night). Still, despite his wild man reputation, despite a few runs in with the law, despite a few runs in with irate husbands, a few white brother husbands too, Cab was a pro and expected everybody to be on their toes especially when he got rolling (and that rolling depended on those dressing room scotches and cadged reefers), got into his shimmy-shaking habits, the stuff that made the crowd go wild and the women, well, made them sweat, if that’s what women do when they get excited. Just then Cab came out, came out cool as a cucumber, all dressed in black tails, shoes shined to black heaven, conductor’s stick under his arm and began his thing. He starts with Jumpin’Jive, and they were off. He swore, he swore on seven bibles, Cab stole the whole routine from the late Michael Jackson...

After hours, the show over for about an hour by then, most of the chairs up, an old dusky janitor cleaning up this and that, everybody, every performer, everybody, with tie untied, shirt buttons opened, including Cab, a few guys from other clubs in the area who had come by to pay their respects, and to show their wares, to compete, a few Mayfair swells with bottles of high-shelf scotch in both hands as payment for being allowed to stick around when the boys really started kicking out the jams, a few women, a couple white, some hangers-on, some looking for kicks in the black night, some here because they are holding life-line reefer, or sister. And so it started, not the pitter-patter of an hour ago, not the hijinks glad-hand stuff but some attempt, attempt mind you to blow back to Mother Africa, to that sound embedded in each man’s head looking for a way to get expressed even in nowhere Davenport. And Cab held forth, as Cab would, in these after-hours soirées, and he belted out the meanest version of Hustling Dan anybody ever heard, or ever heard for a long time. And the way he sang that damn made that unnamed observer swear, swear on seven bibles, he stole the whole song from the late Michael Jackson...