The Lorenz-Pulte Jazz and Blues PageCONTENTS: |
We first encountered Cab in
a 1932 Betty Boop cartoon called "Minnie the Moocher." Here we saw live
footage of a lithesome man dancing the moonwalk to "Prohibition Blues,"
an old Missourians instrumental performed by the Cab Calloway Orchestra
(the former Missourians). We didn't know at that time who he was, but we
were captivated by the haunting music and the intriguing dance. Then the
cartoon itself commenced. When Betty and Bimbo ran into a cave, they were
greeted by Cab Calloway, disguised as the rotoscoped ghost of a walrus,
singing his signature tune, "Minnie the Moocher." The outlandish imagery
and the eerie song fascinated us. The cartoon ended with another Missourians
instrumental, "Vine Street Drag." We were hooked. We had to find more about
this Cab Calloway!
Richard Fleischer, the son of Max
Fleischer (the creator of Betty Boop), said that when Cab first saw himself
as a spectral walrus in "Minnie the Moocher," he fell off his chair laughing.
Cab made two more cartoons with the Fleischers: "Snow White" and "Old Man
of the Mountain." Snow White" is considered one of the finest cartoons
ever made. (See The 50 Greatest Cartoons, as Selected by 1,000 Animation
Professionals, edited by Jerry Beck, Turner Publishing, Inc., 1994.)
You don't get to see any live action
of Cab in "Snow White," which is too bad, but the animation is incredible
and, of course, the music is Cab and his Orchestra at their best. First
Cab sings "St. James Infirmary" in the rotoscoped guise of Koko the Clown.
"St. James Infirmary" was Cab's original signature tune, but he wanted
something written specifically for himself, so he and Irving Mills wrote
"Minnie the Moocher" to supplant "St. James Infirmary." The two melodies
are extremely similar, and also bear a close resemblance to "Prohibition
Blues." "Snow White" ends with the old Missourians instrumental, "Stopping
the Traffic."
In "Old Man of the Mountain," Cab
and his Orchestra appear live at the beginning playing "Minnie the Moocher,"
segueing into "Old Man of the Mountain." This cartoon is non-stop Cab from
beginning to end. He appears first as an owl, singing the title song. The
words have been changed for the cartoon, in which the Old Man is a villain.
In the original song, the Old Man is a benevolent character. Next we see
Cab as the Old Man himself, rotoscoped and singing, "You Gotta Hi-De-Hi,"
followed by "The Scat Song."
In all of these cartoons, Cab's characters
are set in caves with menacing and ominous background illustrations: skeletons,
skulls, ghosts, leering faces, and gambling, alcohol and drug paraphernalia.
People have claimed that the Fleischers were unaware of the drug references
in Cab's songs (for example, "kicking the gong around" meaning "smoking
opium"), but the imagery in the animations suggests otherwise.
Cab was one of the most remarkable
vocalists in the history of jazz. He could leap off a cliff, vocally, and
always land on his feet. No matter what he did or how outrageous he got,
he always sounded good.
Click here to reference a table of the Works
of Cab Calloway.
Click here to read more details about Cab Calloway
in the Betty Boop cartoon, Minnie
the Moocher.
Visit the website of the revived Cab Calloway Orchestra, directed by Cab's grandson, C. Calloway Brooks.
Read Chris
Calloway's excellent article about her father.
Click here to reference a table of the Works
of Blanche Calloway.
Click here to see the lyrics
of Blanche's songs.
Read Chris
Calloway's excellent article about her Aunt Blanche.
Once we had discovered Cab Calloway
through his participation in Betty Boop cartoons, we set out to find everything
we could pertaining to him. Early on, we bought a copy of the CD, Viper
Mad Blues, which starts out with Cab's "Kickin' the Gong Around," a
song belonging to the Minnie the Moocher series. Also included on this
CD is Fats Waller performing, "The Reefer Song." We loved that song in
particular. That was our introduction to Thomas "Fats" Waller.
We also ordered several videos of
film shorts that had been recorded throughout the thirties and forties.
Several of these featured Fats Waller; he performed "Ain't Misbehavin',"
"Honeysuckle Rose," "Your Feets' Too Big," and "The Joint is Jumpin'."
Many of these were his own compositions. We could not get enough of Fats
Waller. We played the shorts over and over, and marveled at his distinctive
piano playing, his intriguing voice and his amazing humor. Here was a man
who could play piano like no one else can, sing, flirt, and kid around
all at the same time. His intricate piano playing, his gravel-and-honey
voice, and his wisecracks all combined to produce an intimate effect; with
Fats Waller, you feel as if he were right there in the room with you, sharing
a joke and a secret.
Fats Waller was simultaneously funny
looking and attractive, silly and dignified. He was eccentric, brilliant,
charismatic, irresponsible, wild, sweet-natured, and proud. He was the
ultimate free spirit, and while there was not a mean streak in him anywhere,
he would never let anyone push him around. His son, Maurice, has written
an excellent biography, Fats Waller, published in 1977 by Schirmer
Books, NY, and co-authored by Anthony Calabrese.
Fat's last performance was his appearance
in the 1943 movie "Stormy Weather." His performance with Ada Brown is quite
remarkable. He died of bronchial pneumonia on the train ride back from
Hollywood, at the age of 39. If we could travel back through time, the
first place we would go would be that train, where we would give Fats Waller
a shot of penicillin.
Click here to find Viper
Mad Blues or Fats
Waller's biography at Amazon.com.
DON
REDMAN We first learned about Don Redman
by way of the 1932 Betty Boop cartoon, "I Heard," which featured Don as
a guest artist. The cartoon begins with live footage of Don and his Orchestra,
playing "Chant of the Weed," one of Don's best-known compositions. Further
on in the cartoon, we hear Don singing two of his other trademark pieces,
"How'm I Doin'?" and "I Heard." The words to "How'm I Doin'?" were modified
for the cartoon.
Don's style was quiet and subtle,
and at first we didn't pay too much attention to him; we were attracted
initially to the flashier Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong, who also appeared
in Betty Boop cartoons. Then we heard Don Redman performing with Louis
Armstrong in "It's Tight Like That," a really funny song with Don saying
in his quiet, soft, mischievous voice, "It's tight like that, Louis," to
which Louis replies, in his deep growl, "No it ain't tight like that."
Several bands perform "Tight Like That," but this is the most appealing
rendition we have heard. We tried looking for Don Redman in various books
about jazz, and had a terrible time finding anything about him at all.
Since then, we have discovered that he was one of the most influential
jazz musicians of the '20s and '30s. It is puzzling and sad that this brilliant
composer, band leader, arranger, vocalist, and wind instrument prodigy
should have been so neglected.
Don Redman is a treasure. His compositions
and arrangements are distinctive; he composed "Hot and Anxious," part of
which formed the nucleus of "In the Mood," which made a fortune for someone,
but not Don Redman. He led excellent bands that sounded a lot like the
early Cab Calloway bands, and his vocal style was absolutely unlike any
other: a quiet half singing, half speaking that is alluring and playful.
Fortunately
for all of us, Don recorded a film short called "Yeah, Man." He looks just
like he sounds. We are willing to bet that as a kid he played all kinds
of tricks in school, but was never suspected, let alone caught.
Don Redman wrote a book called Chant
of the Weed, which is unfortunately out of print.
Click here to see the lyrics
of some of songs performed by Don Redman.
What can we say about Louis Armstrong
that everyone doesn't know already? He is probably the best-known of all
jazz musicians. He is given credit for essentially creating jazz in its
modern form.
I must confess that I didn't care
for Louis Armstrong when I heard him as a kid in the fifties and sixties.
In retrospect, I am sure that my reaction was to the type of music
that he and everyone else performed in that era; all that cheesy "Hello
Dolly" kind of stuff.
If you want to hear (and see) Louis
Armstrong at his wild, ferocious best, you have to go back to the '20s
and '30s. We all were reintroduced to him via the Betty Boop cartoon, "I'll
Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal, You," in which he performs the title
song, one of his favorites. The cartoon ends with the famous "Tiger Rag."
You must be warned: this cartoon is racist; it would not be acceptable
today, but the music is incredible, and you do get to see footage of Louis.
You can also see Louis performing the same song in a film short called
"Rhapsody in Black and Blue." He is magnificent in this short, performing
in an outrageous leopard-skin costume, laughing, charging around, growling
and making faces. You can appreciate the life he brings to this song if
you have ever heard it performed by other artists.
"I'll Be Glad When You're Dead" is
an old hokum song, full of sexual allusions, typical of that genre. Hokum
is a predecessor of jazz, emerging from the vaudeville tradition. It has
a folk-music sound to it, not all that different from the earliest country
music.
One of the best ways to understand
how Louis Armstrong changed jazz is to compare his performance of this
song with those of other artists of the time: Coot Grant and Kid Wesley
Wilson, for example, or Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy. These people did
very beautiful traditional renditions of the song. Louis's approach is
totally different: more dynamic, freer, more improvisational. It is also
of interest to hear Cab Calloway perform "You Rascal, You"; like so many
jazz artists, Cab went through a Louis Armstrong phase and you can hear
it plainly in this performance.
Click here to see Louis Armstrong's autobiography,
Satchmo:
My Life in New Orleans, at amazon.com.
When we got the Viper Mad
Blues collection, one of the recordings that really caught our attention
was "Willie the Weeper," because this is the song on which "Minnie the
Moocher" was based, at least in terms of the lyrics.
The singer who performed "Willie the
Weeper" had an odd, high-pitched, rather cat-like, but very appealing and
funny style. We found out that the singer was named Frankie "Half-Pint"
Jaxon, and we pictured Frankie as being a small, funny-looking woman with
a big grin.
We had another recording of Frankie
on a CD from the same series (Mojo) as Viper Mad Blues, this one
on an album called the Copulatin' Blues. (They sang about these
things quite a lot back then.) This was a very raunchy song called "My
Daddy Rocks Me with One Steady Roll," full of extremely suggestive lyrics
and sound effects. It was recorded by a jug band, which only added to the
effect. We took a liking to Frankie, and decided to order a CD of the singer.
What a shocker it was to open the
package and see a picture of Frankie for the first time -- and to discover
that Frankie was a man!
Once we got over the shock and read
the pamphlet inside, we found out that Frankie was a vaudeville star and
famous female impersonator from the 'teens, 'twenties, and 'thirties. Frankie's
recordings were funny, wild and suggestive, often studded with little bits
of Frankie's vaudeville comedy routines. Occasionally, Frankie would start
out a song by saying something like, "I'm going to sing you a song entitled,
"Roses are red, coal is black; if your pants are too loose, just pull in
the slack!'" Then he would proceed to sing something that had nothing to
do with the "title" he had given it. Frankie is known to have appeared
in a film short called "Black and Tan Fantasy" with Duke Ellington, in
which he played a piano mover. There are also appearances by a little man
who looks suspiciously like Frankie in many other film shorts with which
he was never credited. We are virtually certain that he is the small man
who appears in the beginning of the Bessie Smith short, "St. Louis Blues."
And recently we found him in the movie Emperor Jones, in which he
plays a treasurer. He has only one line, but he makes the most of it. He
looks even more diminutive than ever next to big Paul Robeson, the star
of the movie.
We have been able to find four CDs devoted to the recordings
of Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon. (We personally like his earliest stuff best.)
Click below to find these works at amazon.com: 
Lil Johnson always sounds like
she's having a good time, even when she's singing the blues. In I Lost
My Baby, the melody, her style and her spoken comments all suggest that
she's not all that sorry that she lost her baby.
Just how raunchy was Lil Johnson?
To find out, check out some of her songs on our Jazz
and Blues Lyrics Page. If You Can Dish It (I Can Take It), Press My
Button, Get 'Em From the Peanut Man and Sam-the Hot Dog Man should give
you the idea!
Click below to find these works at amazon.com:
Here we are visiting the famous Mount Jazzmore, with its stone portraits
of Don Redman, Cab Calloway, Frankie Jaxon and Louis Armstrong.
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LINKS AND WEBRRINGS TO OTHER JAZZ
AND BLUES SITES:
For a listing of movies featuring big bands: David
Mulliss's web site!
For jazz photos, book listings, CD listings, and
general information: Tom Morgan's web site!
For blues information, the Memphis
blues web site!
This African
American Music Ring site owned by Brenna
Lorenz.
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