The hi-de-ho miracle lady

Young Chang

Chris Calloway used to think she was the “squarest chick on the

planet.” Touring with her father, the legendary big band and jazz

performer Cab Calloway, didn’t strike her as the hippest thing to do.

“Running around with Cab Calloway, singing all this corny music -- I

wanted to be Tina Turner, at least,” Chris Calloway said, laughing.

But during the last eight years, she has come to understand that she

has been blessed -- with a seat at the foot of the “master” and the

lessons she took away with her.

This month, Calloway began a three-month national tour spotlighting

the Cab Calloway legacy of swing. Calloway -- whose credits include an

all-black production of “Hello, Dolly” on Broadway -- will perform

original arrangements from her father’s repertoire Sunday at Orange Coast

College.

“I tell you, it’s a very toe-tapping show,” said Chester Whitmore, a

dancer with the show. “If you don’t have a seat belt on your seat, you’ll

be up on stage, dancing in the aisles.”

For music scholars interested in the history of jazz, Whitmore said

the show will sum things up.

“Some people might know about the Cotton Club, but this is the time

you can actually hear it and see it and be a part of it.”

Cab Calloway, who died at age 87 in in 1994, performed regularly at

the Cotton Club in New York and became one of the best-known black

entertainers of his era, along with such household names as Bill

Robinson, Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

Calloway’s hit tunes included “Minnie the Moocher,” “Kicking the Gong

Around,’ “You Gotta Hi-De-Ho” and “The Hi-De-Ho Miracle Man.”

His sister, Blanche Calloway, started the family legend a little

before he did. She fronted an all-male band and produced several records

before retiring in the mid-1930s.

Chris Calloway feels her current show completes the 70-year cycle of

her family’s musical history.

“What my Aunt Blanche began by being a female in an all-male band has

come to completion in me,” she said. “[Daddy] was sandwiched between two

women. Daddy made it his male thing and of course Daddy took it to the

heights ... and he was our spokesperson.”

Chris Calloway’s career began about 30 years ago with an appearance on

the “Ed Sullivan Show.” But you could say she restarted by herself less

than a decade ago.

For 20 years, she performed with her father and his Hi-De-Ho

Orchestra, touring the world. But eight years ago, it occurred to her

that she needed to attend to her own life, career and style. She moved to

Santa Fe, N.M.

“It was the eight years I spent in Santa Fe that helped me to strip

away the confusion and create my true voice, my true art,” Calloway said.

But this doesn’t mean she isn’t still her father’s daughter on stage.

Sunday’s program will include some of Cab Calloway’s best-known hits,

like the shout-and-answer tune “Hey Now.”

At home, she sometimes reminisces. An old video shows her and her

father, whom she calls a “grunter” because he grunted a lot, doing a duet

of “Jumpin’ Jive.”

“It chokes me up every time I see it,” Calloway said. “There we are

just standing in the moment together.”

FYI

WHAT: Tribute to Cab Calloway

WHEN: 4 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview

Road, Costa Mesa

COST: $25-$33

CALL: (714) 432-5880