Major new biographical memoir of Cab Calloway coming for CAB100:

“The Jumpin’ Jive of Cab Calloway”

by C. Calloway Brooks

In a style that reflects Cab Calloways own multifaceted approach to his art form, The Jumpin’ Jive of Cab Calloway provides the most comprehensive portrait yet written regarding one of the most widely beloved of all American masters.  Just in time for the CAB100 centennial celebration, this biographical memoir is written from the unique personal and professional perspective of Cab’s own beloved eldest grandson and musical successor - C. Calloway Brooks – a New England Conservatory graduate and the current Cab Calloway Orchestra Director.  The Jumpin’ Jive of Cab Calloway provides an intimate insiders’ view and combines decades of Brooks’ own memories, insights, professional experience, and research, with his thoughtful, witty, easy writing style to reveal a fresh and engaging picture of Cab Calloway’s life and career. 

Cab Calloway was an extraordinary artist whose greatest achievement was his unwavering capacity to bring out the music in millions of people around the world - the essence of Hi De Ho.  By mastering an artistic method that was simple yet dazzling, ancient yet modern, and always profoundly human, his  interaction with his audience transformed the American cultural landscape in the 30’s and 40’s and beyond, in music, language, dance, dress, and attitude.  He electrified the world stage, and personified the American Swing Era, as a uniquely innovative American artist and social commentator who was captivating, rooted and fearless in his self expression.  With a progressive style and spirit that was unmistakably his, Cab Calloway is a true artistic treasure - illuminating souls today and forever.

Through Brooks’ firsthand account and years of research of Cab’s career, this illustrated book covers key historical information and a lively analysis of the Calloway style illuminated by uncovering Cab’s private ideas on: his art, his peers, politics, race, and his unusual family and marital relationships.  The Jumpin’ Jive of Cab Calloway exposes Cab’s surprising behind the scenes interactions with some of the most fascinating figures in American culture, such as: Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Ronald Reagan, Hubert Humphrey, and Richard Nixon.

The Jumpin’ Jive of Cab Calloway also reveals the deep, personal and professional bond between Brooks’ and his famous grandfather, Cab.  From his first childhood experience of Cab’s live performance, while 5 years old, at “Granddaddy Cab’s” orchestra rehearsal - which he adamantly refused to leave - to their years of touring and performing together while Brooks’ was a Conservatory student, to their private times spent together during Cab’s later years at his home in White Plains, NY where they would listen to recordings, play music together, and confide to each other about music and life.   

In this distinctively intimate biographical memoir, Brooks goes beyond the easy categories that have previously defined his famous grandfather, and paves a new way of understanding the man and his true historical legacy.  How he lived it, who he met along the way, how he felt about it and why the Calloway legacy is so ageless.  Their histories are inexorably intertwined as their personal as well as professional dreams, struggles and triumphs unfold into a memorable, true story of deep human commitment, connection and love.