Cab Kaye
Encyclopedia
Nii-lante Augustus Kwamlah Quaye, better known as Cab Kaye (London, September 3, 1921 – Amsterdam
, March 13, 2000) was an English-Ghanaian-Dutch jazz
musician, bandleader
, entertainer, drummer, guitarist, pianist, songwriter and singer. His singing was influenced by Billie Holiday
and he often accompanied himself on piano with a graceful, rhythmic style. He effortlessly combined blues
, bebop
, stride and scat
with the music of his African and Ghanaian musical
heritage.
, London to a musical family. Cab’s mother, Doris Balderson, sang in English music halls. His Ghanaian great-grandfather was an asafo warrior drummer. His grandfather, Henry Quaye, was an organist for the Methodist Mission church
in the former Gold Coast
, now called Ghana
. His father, Caleb Jonas Quaye (born 1895 in Accra
, Ghana), performed under the name Ernest Mope Desmond as musician, band leader, pianist and percussionist. With his blues
piano style, Caleb Jonas Quaye became popular around 1920 in London and Brighton
with his band “The Five Musical Dragons” in Murray’s Club with, among others, Arthur Briggs
, Sidney Bechet
and George "Bobo" Hines.
Cab Kaye would never know his father. On January 27, 1922, on his way to performing in a concert, Caleb Jonas Quaye lost his life in a railroad accident in Blisworth
, Northamptonshire
. Cab was four months old. Cab, his mother and sister Norma moved to Portsmouth
, where a life insurance policy provided temporary financial support. He attended primary school at Saint John's elementary school. Between ages nine and twelve he spent three years in the hospital while a tumor in his neck was irradiated. British radiation therapy
was still in its infancy and Cab Kaye’s treatment was experimental. A scar remained on the left side of his neck for the rest of his life. After being discharged from the hospital, he briefly attended Hilsea Secondary School until 1935.
Possibly due to his mother’s alcohol problems, he was found on the streets more frequently than in school. Cab’s first instrument was the timpani
. A Canadian soldier introduced him to this instrument and taught him how to count and use the mallets.
After a job selling horse manure and a few rounds as a boxer, the fourteen-year old Cab Kaye visited nightclubs where coloured musicians were welcome (including "Shim Sham" and "The Nest"). He won first prize in a song contest: a tour with the Billy Cotton
band. Here he met the African-American trombonist and tap dancer Ellis Jackson. Ellis Jackson convinced Billy Cotton to engage Cab as an assistant to Billy Cotton and a singer in his band. Originally engaged as a tap dancer with Billy Cotton’s show band in 1936, Cab recorded his first song, "Shoe Shine Boy" under the name Cab Quay. This was the start of the career as a jazz singer that would bring him in contact with jazz musicians from all over the world.
, England. Until 1940 he sang and drummed with the Ivor Kirchin
Band, with Steve Race
on piano, in the Paramount Dance Hall (on Tottenham Court Road
) where he was one of the only Africans around. When a guest was refused entrance because of skin colour, Cab Kaye refused to perform. The incident led to the regular acceptance of people of colour and the Paramount Dance Hall grew into a sort of “Harlem of London”. After a short period with Britain’s first black swing bandleader, Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and "His Rhythm Swingers", he played in several radio broadcasts. Shortly thereafter, Cab Kaye joined the British Merchant Navy
, which was required to sail and provided support services to the allies during World War II. On March 8, 1941, three days after Cab Kaye enlisted, Ken Johnson and saxophonist David Williams were killed when a bomb fell on the London nightclub
Café de Paris
in London's West End
, where they were performing. Around this time Cab Kaye’s mother, Doris Balderson, was also killed when her house in Portsmouth
(England) was the only house on her street to get hit by a bomb.
While on leave from the Merchant Navy, Cab Kaye sang with Don Mario Barretto in London. In 1942, his ship was hit by a torpedo
in the Pacific Ocean. Cab Kaye was saved, but his convoy
continued to be attacked by enemy ships. During the following three nights, two other ships were sunk. These experiences stayed with Cab his entire life and explain his constant fear of fireworks. But the adventure was not over. En route to an Army hospital in New York he was badly hurt as his plane crashed just before landing. While recuperating in New York, he went to concerts and played in clubs in Harlem
and Greenwich Village
with the great trumpet player Roy Eldridge
, trombonist Sandy Williams
, Slam Stewart
, Pete Brown
, Charlie Parker
, Dizzy Gillespie
and Willie "The Lion" Smith. The story was told in a two-page article in Melody Maker (December, 1942) titled “TORPEDOED... SHIPWRECKED... INJURED... BUT HE MET ALL THE SWING STARS!”.
After his return to London, Cab Kaye sang in February and April 1943 with clarinettist Harry Parry
then with the “Princes of rhythm”, and formed a band that played in 1943 and 1944 in the Orchard Club on Wigmore Street
that included a 16-year old Ronald Schatt (Ronnie Scott
) on sax and Ralph Sharon
and Dick Katz
on piano.
and India
with Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson
’s "All Colored Band". After that, he performed as a singer and entertainer in Belgium
. In 1947, he returned to London to sing in the bands of guitarist Vic Lewis
, trombonist and bandleader Ted Heath
, the bebop accordionist Tito Burns
and the band "Jazz in the Town Hall". In that year, Cab Kaye was voted number 13 by the readers of Melody Maker
in their annual Jazz Poll.
From 1948 he performed mainly as orchestra leader of his own bands, such as "The Ministers of Swing", which featured the saxophonists Ronnie Scott
and Johnny Dankworth (who later married Cleo Laine
) and the bebop guru pianist Denis Rose
. For the new wave of London musicians from the West Indies, as well as the English musicians, Cab Kaye was an inspiration as a bandleader. In 1949 he played with Tommy Pollard (piano, accordion, vibes), Cecil Jacob “Flash” Winston (drums, vocals and piano) and Paul Fenhoulet’s Orchestra, a band that always included top jazz musicians. On October 13, 1949 he recorded an album with clarinetist Keith Bird and "The Esquire Six".
In this period he also led Cab Kaye and "his Coloured Orchestra" and co-led "The Cabinettes" with Ronnie Ball
featuring "blues singer" Mona Baptiste from Trinidad
. Both of these bands played regularly in the Fabulous Feldman Club
(100 Oxford Street, London), featuring Cab Kaye on electric guitar. Cab Kaye's band was, after the war in 1948, the first musical ensemble featuring people of colour to play in Amsterdam
’s Concertgebouw
. With his "All Coloured Band", featuring Dave Wilkins
, Henry Shalofsky (Hank Shaw
) and Sam Walker, Cab Kaye then toured in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in 1950 and 1951.
In Paris at the end of the 1940s beginning 50's, Cab Kaye met with Tadd Dameron
, who was then playing with Miles Davis
. Tadd Dameron gave Cab Kaye his first and only piano lesson. In the Club St. Germain Cab Kaye played with guitarist Django Reinhardt
who had become more interested in bebop
.
Also in Paris, Cab reunited with Roy Eldridge who introduced him to Don Byas
, probably in Dick Edward’s jazz club Ringside (later the Blue Note) on the Rue Thérèse. The Ringside was frequented by such jazz greats as pianist Art Simmons
, Annie Ross
(of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
), saxophonist James Moody
, Pierre Michelot
(bassist, bandleader and composer) and poet/vocalist “Oop-Pop-A-Da” Babs Gonzales
. In Jazz News (June 21, 1961) a half-hour jam session is described, based on “Stomping at the Savoy” at the Ringside in the early 50’s. Art Simmons on piano and Cab Kaye drove the crowd wild.
In the years following, the early 50’s, Cab Kaye regularly accompanied saxophonist Don Byas
on piano.
In 1950 Cab Kaye played in the Netherlands. "Cab Kaye's combo comes to Rotterdam
", Cab Kaye and "seven negro musicians" as the Dutch jazz magazine "Rhythm" reports on February 15, 1950, "brings a program in the style of Louis Jordan
, but also South American music and calypso
's". Cab Kaye played the entire month of March 1950 in the Rotterdam
club "Parkzicht" with jazz trumpeter Dave Wilkins
from Barbados
, the Jamaican tenor saxophonist and clarinetist George Tyndale
, Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Rupert Nurse (bass - the first musician to write big band arrangements for calypso), Cliff Anderson (drums) and Chico Eyo (bongos).
While in the Netherlands, a performance with the "Skymasters" was recorded by the Dutch radio network AVRO in May, 1950 (according to Melody Maker the performance was broadcasted on May 17, 1950). In the same period a performance featuring Cab Kaye was broadcasted in the television programme "music all in" by the Dutch television and radio organization TROS
(see: Jazz & improvised music in the Netherlands, 1978).
In 1951 Cab Kaye recorded with Astraschall records in Germany with George Tyndale (tenor sax), Dave Wilkins (trumpet), Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Owen Stephens (bass) and Aubrey Henry (drums).
(where Cab Kaye met Charlie Parker
, among other notables). In the Netherlands, Cab played in the newly opened "Avifauna" in Alphen aan den Rijn
, the world's first bird park. In a turn of fate, Cab first met his later wife Jeannette at Avifauna when she was a little girl. The founder and owner was a hat manufacturer from The Hague, Gerardus van den Brink, an uncle of Jeannette van den Brink. The reprise came 30 years later when Cab and Jeannette married.
In 1951, Cab Kaye played a small role in the movie Sensation in San Remo, directed by Georg Jacoby
. Although the New Musical Express on March 20, 1953 announced "Cab Kaye gets Big Break Film", the movie was not a success and soon disappeared from cinemas. But it was not to be Cab’s last time in front of a camera. Further exposure came with his shows in the Montpellier Buttery Club where, according to a flyer, he performed his "Afro-Cuban music" and organised dance contests (cha-cha
, mambo
and jive
). Prizes were presented by jazz stars such as Tony Crombie
and Ronnie Scott
. In 1952 he recorded with the Gerry Moore
Trio on March 1 and the Norman Burns Quintet on May 17. From late 1952 to mid-1953 Cab played with drummer Tommy Jones from Liverpool
and bassist/guitarist Brylo Ford from Trinidad
. In 1953, Brylo Ford and Deacon Jones
(drums) played in a trio of Cab’s that was featured in the movie Blood Orange
, directed by Terence Fisher
.
Meanwhile, Cab Kaye led various multi-ethnic bands, usually consisting of musicians from British, African and West Indian origin. Later that year, he toured Scotland in the revue titled "Memories of Jolson", a musical based on the life of Al Jolson
, featuring sixteen-year-old Shirley Bassey
. The show received such positive reviews that Cab Kaye decided to increasingly focus on variety shows (Melody Maker
, 1953). He founded the theater booking agency Black and White Productions Ltd., to book small theater and film rolls for himself and other musicians. His career as a businessman did not last long and he soon focused again on making music.
A July 5, 1953 flyer from Jephson Gardens Pavilion announces Cab Kaye and his orchestra with a special attraction: "America's Queen of the Ivories”, Mary Lou Williams
. In this band he accompanied the jitterbug and tap dancer Josephine (Josie) Woods, Dizzy Reece
(trumpet), Pat Burke
(tenor sax), Dennis Rose (piano), Denny Coffey (bass) and Dave Smallman (bongo & conga) in 'Cab Kaye's jazz septet' amongst others at the London Palladium
in 1953. Several different types of appearances followed, including performances with "Old Black Magic" singer Billy Daniels
and pianist Benny Payne (New Wimbledon Theatre
, July 26, 1953).
In the Netherlands, Kaye performed in the Kurhaus
in Scheveningen. In the same year (1953), Melody Maker reported that a very hot sauce with a secret recipe, "Cab's secret”, was sold in a number of shops on Archer Street (East Finchley
) in London. Although popular among Cab’s friends for many years, the sauce never became a commercial success. At the end of 1953, Cab formed a cabaret act with Josie Woods "the Two Brown Birds of Rhythm". Again in Paris’s "Ring Side" club, this time announced as "Kab Kay”, he accompanied Eartha Kitt
on piano. In April, 1954 he played the role of “Kenneth - the coloured singer” in the film The Man Who Loved Redheads
, written by Terence Rattigan
, directed by Harold French
and produced by British Lion
. The film is about an innocent boy who meets a red-haired girl (Moira Shearer
), and can’t forget her. Cab Kaye received a salary of £35 per day.
During one of his tours in England (September 20, 1954), he sang with a band led by pianist Ken Moule
and including Dave Usden (trumpet), Keith Barr
, Roy Sidwell (tenor saxophone), Don Cooper
(bass), Arthur Watts (bass) and Lennie Breslaw (drums). Again contracted by impresario Lou van Rees, he toured the Netherlands in 1955-1956 and performed in the Flying Dutchman club in Scheveningen. Lou van Rees had the idea to form a big band with 12 band leaders who were not often heard on the Dutch radio, including Wil Hensbergen (Wil Hensbergen Orchestra), Max Woiski Sr. (La Cubana Orchestra), vibraphonist Eddy Sanchez (Swiss Air Trio), Johnny Kraaykamp (leader of the One Man Band), Wessel Ilcken and Cab Kaye.
Also in 1956 "showman" Cab Kaye played in Amsterdam’s Sheherazade jazz club with his 'All Star Quintet', consisting out of Rob Pronk (piano), Toon van Vliet (tenor sax), Dub Dubois (bass) and drummer Wally Bishop
. The club, nicknamed 'Zade' by friends, was located until 1962 in the Wagenstraat in Amsterdam and was a popular meeting place for jazz musicians. Later in 1956 Cab Kaye toured Germany and played in Hamburg
, Düsseldorf
and Köln
, followed in 1957 by touring England with the Eric Delaney
Band Show with Marion Williams
.
On August 31, 1957 Cab Kaye performed in 'Cab's Quintet' in the British television program Six-Five Special
(Season 1, episode 29) with Laurence “Laurie” Deniz (1st guitar) and his brother Joe Deniz (2nd guitar), Pete Blannin (bass) and Harry South
(piano). Around this time Cab Kaye also performed in Oh Boy!, the first British teenage all-music show. Oh Boy an ABC
/ITV
show produced by Jack Good
who had earlier produced Six-Five Special
and knew Cab Kaye from that show. In the same year, 1957, Cab Kaye was voted eleventh in Melody Maker’s Jazz Music Magazine Poll. In 1959 he joined the ensemble of Humphrey Lyttelton
in London which led to the recording of the album Humph Meets Cab (March 1960) with his characteristic witty vocals on pieces such as "Let Love Lie Sleeping".
Cab Kaye's popularity kept on growing. The Manchester Evening News
announced on 25 August 1960 for the next day BBC TV Jazz Session featuring the Dill Quintet, the Bob Wallis
Storyville Jazzmen and singer Cab Kaye. In the same year Cab Kaye came ninth place in Melody Maker’s Jazz Poll. First place that year went to the English jazz and blues singer George Melly
.
became under the name of Ghana
the first sub-Sahara
n African country to gain its independence in 1957. Three years later, on March 6, 1960, Kwame Nkrumah
became president of the republic. For Cab Kaye the independence of Ghana was an important political symbol. Two family members in high positions at the Ghanaian government, Tawiah Adamafio and CT Nylander, had brought Cab Kaye into contact with Ghanaian politics. After the independence of Ghana during the reign of Kwame Nkrumah, Cab Kaye was appointed to the Government Entertainments Officer and from 1961 Cab Kaye worked for the Ghana High commissioner’s headquarters in London as protocol officer. In this function he played a role in getting a Ghanaian passport for Miriam Makeba
whose South African passport had been revoked under the country's apartheid regime.
Probably partly influenced by both racist experiences and the euphoria on the independency of Ghana he disbanded with the anglicized version of his name (Cab Kaye) and called himself Kwamlah Quaye (some newspapers forgot the "h" in Kwamlah).
While in the Ghanaian Embassy for daytime work, he played at night in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
. A farewell special on Cab Kaye entitled Sswinging Diplomat was broadcasted by the BBC
. In Ronnie Scott's club a farewell party was organized for Cab Kaye under the slogan "He's goin 'home' with the best jazz in town".
Before leaving for Ghana Cab Kaye recorded the song he wrote together with William "Bill" Davis "Everything Is Go" with his 'Kwamlah Quaye Sextetto Africana'. With this band he made his first recordings in which he played guitar. This group consisted of guitarist Laurence "Laurie" Deniz (born in Cardiff
in 1924, his father came from Cape Verde
), bass: Chris O'Brien, bongos: Frank Holder, both of which came from British Guiana
(now Guyana
) to serve in the Royal Air Force
(RAF) and Chris Ajilo at claves. "Everything is Go" was a tribute to the American astronaut John Glenn
with its "get set, blast off, this man is heading for space" being a cheerful calypso
piece, strangely interwoven with the melancholy of the astro nautical euphoria of the sixties. In 1962 (February 17) Cab Kaye gained fourth place in the Melody Maker poll of leading jazz musicians. The number was played at the opening of the exhibition of the Space Shuttle
in Accra on May 29, 1962 by Joe Mensah.
Cab Kaye left London with big plans to work for the Ghana Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). Ghana should become the African Riviera and cultural center of modern Africa. Once arrived in Accra, he formed a duo with singer Mary Hyde
with whom he regularly performed in the Star and other hotels in Accra .
In November 1961 Cab Kaye performed during a visit by Queen Elizabeth
. In his function as "Entertainment Manager" for the "Ghana Hotels ltd." Cab Kaye was less successful. Although the concerts he organized were well visited, Cab Kaye could not get the dance competitions on Sunday and Monday of the ground.
Apparently this was very important in Accra, Ghana as it was reported in the Ghana Times (April 26, 1962) which caused Cab Kaye to finish his contract shortly afterwards. In 1963 back in the "Star Hotel" Cab Kaye joined with the drummer Guy Warren
(later known as "Kofi Ghanaba" - son of Ghana) and the folk singer and activist Pete Seeger
who, on a world tour, was very popular in Ghana as he was known for his statements about the equality of the black American population. Cab Kaye then played in Accra (including the, at that time, very famous "Tip-Toe gardens") and Lagos alternating with performances in New York (e.g. in the "Village door" in Long Island
). On August 7, 1964 he played in a charity program O'Pataki (Pataki in the Yoruba language
can be translated as "important") to support the African culture with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie
and his quintet.
song entitled "Beautiful Ghana" under the new title "Work and Happiness". This song, released with "Decca Recordings West Africa", was frequently played during Kwame Nkrumah's regime as part of the political "Work and Happiness" program. As usual after a military coup (Kwame Nkrumah was deposed in 1966) the supporters of the previous regime got into trouble. This also happened to Cab Kaye, who had to explain his political views behind the "Work and Happiness" song (“Evening News", October 12, 1966). Fortunately his sister Norma was married in Nigeria
with Dr. J.T. Nelson-Cole and offered him a new home base in Lagos
. As this was the end of his political career the Pan-Africanism
of Kwame Nkrumah, calling for a politically united Africa, would remain one of the few political ideas which Cab Kaye supported the rest of his life.
Yet he never disengaged entirely from political life. From 1965 Cab Kaye played alternately in New York, Europe and Africa. He made good use of his cultural background from Africa and Europe. In the "New York Amsterdam News"(January 18, 1965) he had a letter printed with the lines: “I am proud, I am African "..." I am proud, I am black". This text, signed by Nii Lante Quaye (657 Crotona Park, Bronx) was consistent with the ideas of the emerging "Black Power
" movement.
While Cab Kaye was announced in New York under the name "Nii Lante Quaye" as a special act (for example in a flyer announcing Cab Kaye as a guest artist in the show of Ed Nixon Jr. better known as "Nick La Tour" (Baritone) in St. Stephan’s Methodist Church, Broadway on (May 22, 1966).The show master Cab Kaye was announced in Ghanaian flyers of this time as "MC” (Master of Ceremony) Cab Kaye. He performed regularly at the Ghanaian and Nigerian radio and television. On November 16, 1966 in "It's time for show biz" with the Spree City Stompers from Berlin, on January 6, 1967 he performs with “the Paramount Eight Dance Band" in the Ghanaian television on "Bandstand" and on July 30, 1967 as "MC" on the international pop festival in Accra. In May 1968 he acted with his nephews, the "Nelson Cole brothers", in Lagos
and then toured through Nigeria. The Nelson Cole brothers were his sister Norma's sons who formed the Soul Assembly with other artists. In 1996 Cab Kaye played again in Lagos (Federal Palace Hotel
) in a program including Fela Kuti
and highlife
bandleader Bobby Benson
.
Upon his return to England in 1970 he discovered that his daughter Terri Quaye
(also known as Theresa Naa-Koshie
) and his eldest son, Caleb Quaye
and his band Hookfoot
, both having their own musical careers, where more famous in London than Cab Kaye himself. Back in London he began his second London career in Mike Leroy
's "Chez Club Cleo" (Knightsbridge
) accompanied by Clive Cooper (bass) and Cecil 'Flash' Winston (drums). He soon became a much requested star in the London jazz circuit. Cab Kaye's daughter Terri, who started singing with her father and his bebop jazz band as a young girl, accompanied him at some events.
Around 1973 he was accompanied by Mike Greaves (Micky Greeve - drums, percussion), Phil Bates
(bass) and Ray Dempsey (guitar). The following year he was one of the attractions at the "Black Arts Festival 1974" organized by the Commonwealth Institute
in London. Besides performing at various events he made regular appearances at the BBC Club, an exclusive club for employees of the BBC
together with Phil Bates
and Tony Crombie
(composer of “So Near, So Far" recorded by Miles Davis
).
(the Dutch copyright organization that oversees distribution of royalties among publishers, musicians, and writers) and the Dutch Association of Professional Improvising Musicians (BIM). In Amsterdam he performed with jazz musicians like Babs Gonzales
, funk jazz flutist Wally Shorts, Bert Koppelaar (trombonist), Hard Bop and Post Bop jazz bassist Wilbur Little
and conductor Boy Edgar (e.g. in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw). In the early years in Amsterdam he rented an apartment from the jazz saxophonist Rosa King
and became a local celebrity in the Amsterdam jazz scene. On October 1, 1979, he opened his own jazz club in the centre of Amsterdam,"Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar" at Beulingstraat 9, with his Dutch wife Jeannette. When not touring Poland
, Portugal and Iceland
he performed five nights a week in his own Piano Bar, a meeting place for jazz greats. Frequent visitors included Rosa King, trombonist Slide Hampton
, television doctor and saxophonist Aart Gisolf, guitarist Dirk-Jan "Bubblin” Toorop, pianist David Mayer, singer Gerrie van der Klei, Max Roach
, Oscar Peterson
, Pia Beck and many others. In this period, Cab performed in many concerts in the Netherlands, including several with Max "Teawhistle" Teeuwisse in Den Oever
and four times at the North Sea Jazz Festival
. The first North Sea Jazz Festival performance was with his Cab Kaye Quartet on July 16, 1978; the second was Friday, July 10, 1981 with Akwaba Cab Kaye and his Afro Jazz; the third was in July, 1982, accompanied by Aart Gisolf and Nippy Noya
and the last time as a soloist on Sunday, July 10, 1983.
In the second half of the eighties Cab was regularly heard in the Victoria Hotel Amsterdam. On October 10, 1987 he performed in the "Night of Hilversum
”, a charity against polio organized by the Rotary Club, WHO
and UNICEF. On May 21, 1988 Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar closed and since that time Cab Kaye was heard in public much less often than before. The final significant performance of Cab Kaye’s was on Sunday, September 8, 1996 at the Bimhuis
in Amsterdam. Many musicians and jazz lovers, including Herman Openneer, Pim Grass, the Dutch jazz drummer John Engels and Rosa King, organized a very busy birthday party for the then 75-year old pianist. He was unable to sing due to his mouth floor cancer
, but enthusiastically played piano and jammed with many musicians. Subsequently, he performed only sporadically in smaller venues and privately in Amsterdam’s Dapperbuurt
. The last time Cab Kaye played piano (including "Jeannette You are my Love") was on March 12, 2000, at home, along with Rosa King.
. Cab and Theresa often performed together. She and Cab had two daughters, Terri Quaye
(born 8 November 1940, Bodmin
), Tanya Quaye and a son, Caleb Quaye
(born 1948 in London). Cab met his second wife, a Nigerian named Evelyn, in the sixties in Ghana. Together, they moved back to England. After a brief affair in 1973 with Sharon McGowan, a jazz singer, he had a son, Finley Quaye
(born 25 March 1974, Edinburgh
). Cab Kaye met his son Finley as an adult in 1997 at a concert of Finley's in the rock music venue and cultural center Paradiso
Amsterdam. Three generations: grandfather Caleb Jonas Quaye (Ernest Mope Desmond), Kwamlah Quaye (Cab Kaye) and youngest son Finley Quaye have all played, at different times, at Glasgow
's Barrowlands, Wolverhampton
's Wulfrun Hall
and London's Cafe d'Paris.
His third wife, Jeannette, was Dutch. After marrying, he decided to settle in the Netherlands and became a Dutch citizen.
In the nineties, Cab Kaye was diagnosed with mouth floor cancer
. The man who had entertained countless people throughout his life with his singing thus lost the ability to speak. Until his death at age 78 (March 13, 2000) in the Dapperbuurt
, Cab Kaye lived in Amsterdam
where he was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the North Sea
and in Accra (Ghana).
Cab Kaye's motto was "Truth is stranger than f(r)iction, (excuse my diction, I walk with a lisp)."
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, March 13, 2000) was an English-Ghanaian-Dutch jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musician, bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
, entertainer, drummer, guitarist, pianist, songwriter and singer. His singing was influenced by Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
and he often accompanied himself on piano with a graceful, rhythmic style. He effortlessly combined blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, stride and scat
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
with the music of his African and Ghanaian musical
Music of Ghana
Ghana has many styles of traditional and modern music, due to its multiplicity of ethnic groups and its cosmopolitan geographic position in West Africa. The best known modern genre that originated in Ghana is Highlife.-Traditional music:...
heritage.
Youth
Cab Kaye, also known as Cab Quay, Cab Quaye and Kwamlah Quaye, was born on St. Giles High Street in CamdenLondon Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
, London to a musical family. Cab’s mother, Doris Balderson, sang in English music halls. His Ghanaian great-grandfather was an asafo warrior drummer. His grandfather, Henry Quaye, was an organist for the Methodist Mission church
Methodist Church Ghana
The Methodist Church Ghana is one of the largest and oldest Protestant denominations in Ghana. It traces its roots back to the landing of Rev. Joseph Dunwell on 1 January 1835 in Cape Coast, Ghana. Rev...
in the former Gold Coast
Gold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...
, now called Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. His father, Caleb Jonas Quaye (born 1895 in Accra
Accra
Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...
, Ghana), performed under the name Ernest Mope Desmond as musician, band leader, pianist and percussionist. With his blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
piano style, Caleb Jonas Quaye became popular around 1920 in London and Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
with his band “The Five Musical Dragons” in Murray’s Club with, among others, Arthur Briggs
Arthur Briggs
Arthur Briggs was an African American Jazz trumpeter and orchestra leader who performed in Europe....
, Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
and George "Bobo" Hines.
Cab Kaye would never know his father. On January 27, 1922, on his way to performing in a concert, Caleb Jonas Quaye lost his life in a railroad accident in Blisworth
Blisworth
Blisworth is a village and civil parish in the South Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England. The West Coast Main Line, from London Euston to Manchester and Scotland, runs alongside the village partly hidden and partly on an embankment...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
. Cab was four months old. Cab, his mother and sister Norma moved to Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, where a life insurance policy provided temporary financial support. He attended primary school at Saint John's elementary school. Between ages nine and twelve he spent three years in the hospital while a tumor in his neck was irradiated. British radiation therapy
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy , radiation oncology, or radiotherapy , sometimes abbreviated to XRT or DXT, is the medical use of ionizing radiation, generally as part of cancer treatment to control malignant cells.Radiation therapy is commonly applied to the cancerous tumor because of its ability to control...
was still in its infancy and Cab Kaye’s treatment was experimental. A scar remained on the left side of his neck for the rest of his life. After being discharged from the hospital, he briefly attended Hilsea Secondary School until 1935.
Possibly due to his mother’s alcohol problems, he was found on the streets more frequently than in school. Cab’s first instrument was the timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
. A Canadian soldier introduced him to this instrument and taught him how to count and use the mallets.
After a job selling horse manure and a few rounds as a boxer, the fourteen-year old Cab Kaye visited nightclubs where coloured musicians were welcome (including "Shim Sham" and "The Nest"). He won first prize in a song contest: a tour with the Billy Cotton
Billy Cotton
William Edward Cotton , better known as Billy Cotton, was a British band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the dance band era. Today, he is mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, although his musical talent emerged as early as the 1920s...
band. Here he met the African-American trombonist and tap dancer Ellis Jackson. Ellis Jackson convinced Billy Cotton to engage Cab as an assistant to Billy Cotton and a singer in his band. Originally engaged as a tap dancer with Billy Cotton’s show band in 1936, Cab recorded his first song, "Shoe Shine Boy" under the name Cab Quay. This was the start of the career as a jazz singer that would bring him in contact with jazz musicians from all over the world.
The war years
In 1937 Cab Kaye played drums and percussion with Doug Swallow and his band in April, the Hal Swain Band in the summer and Alan Green’s band in September in HastingsHastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
, England. Until 1940 he sang and drummed with the Ivor Kirchin
Ivor Kirchin
Ivor Kirchin Ivor was the Band leader of The Kirchin Band, father to Basil Kirchin.Father, Ivor Kirchin was the Leader, Drummer, Singer, Conductorand Business Manager for this popular big band formed in 1952...
Band, with Steve Race
Steve Race
Stephen Russell Race OBE was a British composer, pianist and radio and television presenter.-Biography:Born in Lincoln, the son of a lawyer, Race learned the piano from the age of five...
on piano, in the Paramount Dance Hall (on Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is a major road in central London, United Kingdom, running from St Giles Circus north to Euston Road, near the border of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile...
) where he was one of the only Africans around. When a guest was refused entrance because of skin colour, Cab Kaye refused to perform. The incident led to the regular acceptance of people of colour and the Paramount Dance Hall grew into a sort of “Harlem of London”. After a short period with Britain’s first black swing bandleader, Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and "His Rhythm Swingers", he played in several radio broadcasts. Shortly thereafter, Cab Kaye joined the British Merchant Navy
Merchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
, which was required to sail and provided support services to the allies during World War II. On March 8, 1941, three days after Cab Kaye enlisted, Ken Johnson and saxophonist David Williams were killed when a bomb fell on the London nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
Café de Paris
Café de Paris (London)
Café de Paris is a London nightclub, located in the West End, beside Leicester Square on Coventry Street, Piccadilly.It opened in 1924 and subsequently featured such performers as Dorothy Dandridge, Marlene Dietrich, Harry Gold, Harry Roy, Ken Snakehips Johnson and Maxine Cooper Gomberg...
in London's West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
, where they were performing. Around this time Cab Kaye’s mother, Doris Balderson, was also killed when her house in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
(England) was the only house on her street to get hit by a bomb.
While on leave from the Merchant Navy, Cab Kaye sang with Don Mario Barretto in London. In 1942, his ship was hit by a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
in the Pacific Ocean. Cab Kaye was saved, but his convoy
Convoy
A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support, though it may also be used in a non-military sense, for example when driving through remote areas.-Age of Sail:Naval...
continued to be attacked by enemy ships. During the following three nights, two other ships were sunk. These experiences stayed with Cab his entire life and explain his constant fear of fireworks. But the adventure was not over. En route to an Army hospital in New York he was badly hurt as his plane crashed just before landing. While recuperating in New York, he went to concerts and played in clubs in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
and Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
with the great trumpet player Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, trombonist Sandy Williams
Sandy Williams
Sandy Williams was an American jazz trombonist born in Summerville, South Carolina, perhaps best-known for playing with the premier big bands of his day, especially the Chick Webb orchestra. Williams also recorded extensively with Ella Fitzgerald.- Early life :In his youth, Williams moved to...
, Slam Stewart
Slam Stewart
Leroy Eliot "Slam" Stewart was an African American jazz bass player whose trademark style was his ability to bow the bass and simultaneously hum or sing an octave higher. He was originally a violin player before switching to bass at the age of 20.-Biography:Stewart was born in Englewood, New...
, Pete Brown
Pete Brown
Peter Ronald Brown is an English performance poet and lyricist.Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores and formed a film...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Willie "The Lion" Smith. The story was told in a two-page article in Melody Maker (December, 1942) titled “TORPEDOED... SHIPWRECKED... INJURED... BUT HE MET ALL THE SWING STARS!”.
After his return to London, Cab Kaye sang in February and April 1943 with clarinettist Harry Parry
Harry Parry
Harry Owen Parry was a Welsh jazz clarinetist and bandleader.Parry was born in Bangor, Wales. He played cornet, tenor horn, flugelhorn, drums, and violin as a child, and began on clarinet and saxophone in 1927. After moving to London in 1932, he played with several dance bands, including Percival...
then with the “Princes of rhythm”, and formed a band that played in 1943 and 1944 in the Orchard Club on Wigmore Street
Wigmore Street
Wigmore Street is a street in the City of Westminster, in the West End of London, England. The street runs for about 600 yards parallel and to the north of Oxford Street between Portman Square to the west and Cavendish Square to the east....
that included a 16-year old Ronald Schatt (Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
) on sax and Ralph Sharon
Ralph Sharon
-Biography:Born in London, he emigrated to America in 1953, becoming a U.S. citizen five years later.By 1958, Ralph Sharon was recording with Tony Bennett, the start of a more than 40 year working relationship as Bennett's man behind the music on many Grammy winning studio recordings, and touring...
and Dick Katz
Dick Katz
Dick Katz was an American jazz pianist and arranger. He freelanced throughout much of his career, and worked in a number of ensembles. He co-founded Milestone Records in 1966 with Orrin Keepnews....
on piano.
After the war
In 1946, Cab Kaye sang for the British troops in EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson
Jiver Hutchinson
Leslie George "Jiver" Hutchinson was a Jamaican jazz trumpeter and bandleader.Hutchinson played in the band of Bertie King in Jamaica in the 1930s, then moved to England, where he played with Happy Blake's Cuba Club Band. In 1936 he played in Leslie Thompson's Emperors of Jazz and in 1938 with Ken...
’s "All Colored Band". After that, he performed as a singer and entertainer in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. In 1947, he returned to London to sing in the bands of guitarist Vic Lewis
Vic Lewis
Vic Lewis was a British jazz guitarist and bandleader.Lewis began playing the guitar at the age of three, and dabbled with cornet and trombone. One of his early bands included George Shearing, then a teenager, among its members...
, trombonist and bandleader Ted Heath
Ted Heath (bandleader)
Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...
, the bebop accordionist Tito Burns
Tito Burns
Tito Burns was a British musician and impresario, who was active in both jazz and rock and roll.-Biography:...
and the band "Jazz in the Town Hall". In that year, Cab Kaye was voted number 13 by the readers of Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
in their annual Jazz Poll.
From 1948 he performed mainly as orchestra leader of his own bands, such as "The Ministers of Swing", which featured the saxophonists Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
and Johnny Dankworth (who later married Cleo Laine
Cleo Laine
Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...
) and the bebop guru pianist Denis Rose
Denis Rose
Denis Rose was an English jazz pianist and trumpeter. He was a longtime fixture on the London jazz scene and was an early influence on British bebop....
. For the new wave of London musicians from the West Indies, as well as the English musicians, Cab Kaye was an inspiration as a bandleader. In 1949 he played with Tommy Pollard (piano, accordion, vibes), Cecil Jacob “Flash” Winston (drums, vocals and piano) and Paul Fenhoulet’s Orchestra, a band that always included top jazz musicians. On October 13, 1949 he recorded an album with clarinetist Keith Bird and "The Esquire Six".
In this period he also led Cab Kaye and "his Coloured Orchestra" and co-led "The Cabinettes" with Ronnie Ball
Ronnie Ball
Ronald "Ronnie" Ball was a jazz pianist born in Birmingham, England.Ball moved to London in 1948, and in the early 1950s he worked both as a bandleader and under Ronnie Scott, Tony Kinsey, Victor Feldman, and Harry Klein...
featuring "blues singer" Mona Baptiste from Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
. Both of these bands played regularly in the Fabulous Feldman Club
100 Club
The 100 Club is a music venue in London situated at 100 Oxford Street, W1, originally called The Feldman Swing Club.The 100 Club attained legendary status in modern British music, having played host to live music since 24 October 1942....
(100 Oxford Street, London), featuring Cab Kaye on electric guitar. Cab Kaye's band was, after the war in 1948, the first musical ensemble featuring people of colour to play in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
’s Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
. With his "All Coloured Band", featuring Dave Wilkins
Dave Wilkins
Dave Wilkins was a jazz trumpeter from Barbados.Wilkins first played in Salvation Army bands in his home country. In 1937 he moved to London, where he worked with Ken "Snakehips" Johnson's West Indian Swing Band among others. He recorded with Una Mae Carlisle and Fats Waller in 1938, and continued...
, Henry Shalofsky (Hank Shaw
Hank Shaw
Henry Shalofsky, better known as Hank Shaw was an English bebop jazz trumpeter.Shaw played with Teddy Foster's band during World War II at the age of 15...
) and Sam Walker, Cab Kaye then toured in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in 1950 and 1951.
In Paris at the end of the 1940s beginning 50's, Cab Kaye met with Tadd Dameron
Tadd Dameron
Tadley Ewing Peake "Tadd" Dameron was an American jazz composer, arranger and pianist. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon called Dameron the "romanticist" of the bop movement, while reviewer Scott Yanow writes that Dameron was the "definitive arranger/composer of the bop era".-Biography:Born in Cleveland,...
, who was then playing with Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. Tadd Dameron gave Cab Kaye his first and only piano lesson. In the Club St. Germain Cab Kaye played with guitarist Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
who had become more interested in bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
.
Also in Paris, Cab reunited with Roy Eldridge who introduced him to Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, probably in Dick Edward’s jazz club Ringside (later the Blue Note) on the Rue Thérèse. The Ringside was frequented by such jazz greats as pianist Art Simmons
Art Simmons
Arthur Eugene Simmons is an American jazz pianist.Simmons played in a band while serving in the U.S. military in 1946. He remained in Germany after the war, studying music, and moved to Paris in 1949...
, Annie Ross
Annie Ross
Annie Ross is an English jazz singer, and actress, best known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.-Early years:...
(of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were a vocalese trio formed by jazz vocalists Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross.-History:The group formed in 1957 and recorded their first album Sing a Song of Basie for Paramount Records...
), saxophonist James Moody
James Moody (saxophonist)
James Moody was an American jazz saxophone and flute player. He was best known for his hit "Moody's Mood for Love," an improvisation based on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; in performance, he often improvised vocals for the tune.-Biography:James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia...
, Pierre Michelot
Pierre Michelot
Pierre Michelot was a French bebop and hard bop double bass player.Born in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, Michelot studied piano from 1936 until 1938, but switched to playing bass at the age of sixteen...
(bassist, bandleader and composer) and poet/vocalist “Oop-Pop-A-Da” Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales , born Lee Brown, was an American jazz vocalist of the bebop era most notable for penning the song "Oop-Pop-A-Da", which was originally recorded and performed by his own band and was later made famous by Dizzy Gillespie . Babs was also once the chauffeur for Errol Flynn...
. In Jazz News (June 21, 1961) a half-hour jam session is described, based on “Stomping at the Savoy” at the Ringside in the early 50’s. Art Simmons on piano and Cab Kaye drove the crowd wild.
In the years following, the early 50’s, Cab Kaye regularly accompanied saxophonist Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
on piano.
In 1950 Cab Kaye played in the Netherlands. "Cab Kaye's combo comes to Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
", Cab Kaye and "seven negro musicians" as the Dutch jazz magazine "Rhythm" reports on February 15, 1950, "brings a program in the style of Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
, but also South American music and calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
's". Cab Kaye played the entire month of March 1950 in the Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
club "Parkzicht" with jazz trumpeter Dave Wilkins
Dave Wilkins
Dave Wilkins was a jazz trumpeter from Barbados.Wilkins first played in Salvation Army bands in his home country. In 1937 he moved to London, where he worked with Ken "Snakehips" Johnson's West Indian Swing Band among others. He recorded with Una Mae Carlisle and Fats Waller in 1938, and continued...
from Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, the Jamaican tenor saxophonist and clarinetist George Tyndale
George Tyndale
George Tyndale, [Sky] was a Jamaican tenor saxophonist and clarinetist.-Early career:...
, Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Rupert Nurse (bass - the first musician to write big band arrangements for calypso), Cliff Anderson (drums) and Chico Eyo (bongos).
While in the Netherlands, a performance with the "Skymasters" was recorded by the Dutch radio network AVRO in May, 1950 (according to Melody Maker the performance was broadcasted on May 17, 1950). In the same period a performance featuring Cab Kaye was broadcasted in the television programme "music all in" by the Dutch television and radio organization TROS
TROS
TROS is a Dutch television and radio organization part of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting...
(see: Jazz & improvised music in the Netherlands, 1978).
In 1951 Cab Kaye recorded with Astraschall records in Germany with George Tyndale (tenor sax), Dave Wilkins (trumpet), Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Owen Stephens (bass) and Aubrey Henry (drums).
The Fifties and Hot Sauce
Between December, 1950 and May, 1951, Cab Kaye's Latin American Band, booked by Lou van Rees, toured France, Germany and The NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(where Cab Kaye met Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, among other notables). In the Netherlands, Cab played in the newly opened "Avifauna" in Alphen aan den Rijn
Alphen aan den Rijn
Alphen aan den Rijn is a town and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, between Leiden and Utrecht. The town is situated on the banks of the river Oude Rijn , where the river Gouwe branches off. The municipality had a population of 72,674 in 2010, and covers an...
, the world's first bird park. In a turn of fate, Cab first met his later wife Jeannette at Avifauna when she was a little girl. The founder and owner was a hat manufacturer from The Hague, Gerardus van den Brink, an uncle of Jeannette van den Brink. The reprise came 30 years later when Cab and Jeannette married.
In 1951, Cab Kaye played a small role in the movie Sensation in San Remo, directed by Georg Jacoby
Georg Jacoby
Georg Jacoby was a German film director and screenwriter. He was married to Marika Rökk from 1940 until his death; the actress Gabriele Jacoby is their daughter.-Selected filmography:...
. Although the New Musical Express on March 20, 1953 announced "Cab Kaye gets Big Break Film", the movie was not a success and soon disappeared from cinemas. But it was not to be Cab’s last time in front of a camera. Further exposure came with his shows in the Montpellier Buttery Club where, according to a flyer, he performed his "Afro-Cuban music" and organised dance contests (cha-cha
Cha-cha-cha (dance)
The Cha-cha-cha is the name of a dance of Cuban origin.It is danced to the music of the same name introduced by Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín in 1953...
, mambo
Mambo (dance)
Mambo .In the late 1940s, Perez Prado came up with the dance for the mambo music and became the first person to market his music as "mambo". After Havana, Prado moved his music to Mexico, where his music and the dance was adopted. The original mambo dance was characterized by freedom and...
and jive
Jive (dance)
In Ballroom dancing, Jive is a dance style in 4/4 time that originated in the United States from African-Americans in the early 1930s. It was originally presented to the public as 'Jive' in 1934 by Cab Calloway. It is a lively and uninhibited variation of the Jitterbug, a form of Swing dance...
). Prizes were presented by jazz stars such as Tony Crombie
Tony Crombie
Anthony John "Tony" Crombie was an English jazz drummer, pianist, bandleader and composer. He was regarded as one of the finest jazz drummers and bandleaders, and occasional but very capable pianist and vibraphonist, to emerge in Britain, and as an energising influence on the British jazz scene...
and Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
. In 1952 he recorded with the Gerry Moore
Gerry Moore
Gerald Asher "Gerry" Moore was an English jazz pianist.Moore spent the years 1922-1939 working freelance in London, playing movie palaces and nightclubs...
Trio on March 1 and the Norman Burns Quintet on May 17. From late 1952 to mid-1953 Cab played with drummer Tommy Jones from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and bassist/guitarist Brylo Ford from Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
. In 1953, Brylo Ford and Deacon Jones
Deacon Jones
David D. "Deacon" Jones is a former American football defensive end in the National Football League for the Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, and the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.Jones specialized in quarterback sacks, a term attributed to him...
(drums) played in a trio of Cab’s that was featured in the movie Blood Orange
Blood Orange (film)
Blood Orange is a 1953 British crime film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Tom Conway and Mila Parély.-Cast:* Tom Conway as Tom Conway* Mila Parély as Helen Pascall* Naomi Chance as Gina* Eric Pohlmann as Mr. Mercedes...
, directed by Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher was a film director who worked for Hammer Films. He was born in Maida Vale, a district of London, England.Fisher was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century...
.
Meanwhile, Cab Kaye led various multi-ethnic bands, usually consisting of musicians from British, African and West Indian origin. Later that year, he toured Scotland in the revue titled "Memories of Jolson", a musical based on the life of Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, featuring sixteen-year-old Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
. The show received such positive reviews that Cab Kaye decided to increasingly focus on variety shows (Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, 1953). He founded the theater booking agency Black and White Productions Ltd., to book small theater and film rolls for himself and other musicians. His career as a businessman did not last long and he soon focused again on making music.
A July 5, 1953 flyer from Jephson Gardens Pavilion announces Cab Kaye and his orchestra with a special attraction: "America's Queen of the Ivories”, Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records...
. In this band he accompanied the jitterbug and tap dancer Josephine (Josie) Woods, Dizzy Reece
Dizzy Reece
Alphonso Son "Dizzy" Reece is a hard bop jazz trumpeter with a distinctive sound and compositional style.Reece was born 5 January 1931 in Kingston, Jamaica, the son of a silent film pianist. He attended the Alpha Boys School , switching from baritone to trumpet at 14...
(trumpet), Pat Burke
Pat Burke
Patrick John Burke is a former Irish professional basketball player, who last played with the Polish club Asseco Prokom Sopot...
(tenor sax), Dennis Rose (piano), Denny Coffey (bass) and Dave Smallman (bongo & conga) in 'Cab Kaye's jazz septet' amongst others at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
in 1953. Several different types of appearances followed, including performances with "Old Black Magic" singer Billy Daniels
Billy Daniels
William Boone Daniels , better known as Billy Daniels, was a singer active in the United States and Europe from the mid-1930s to 1988, notable for his hit recording of "That Old Black Magic" and his pioneering performances on early 1950s television.Daniels was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where...
and pianist Benny Payne (New Wimbledon Theatre
New Wimbledon Theatre
The New Wimbledon Theatre is situated on The Broadway, Wimbledon, London, in the London Borough of Merton. It is a Grade II listed Edwardian theatre built by the theatre lover and entrepreneur, J B Mullholland. Built on the site of a large house with spacious grounds the theatre was designed by...
, July 26, 1953).
In the Netherlands, Kaye performed in the Kurhaus
Kurhaus (Scheveningen)
The Kurhaus is a prominent building located in Scheveningen, The Hague in The Netherlands .- History :It was built between 1884 and 1885 by the German architects Johann Friedrich Henkenhaf and Friedrich Ebert . It consisted originally of a concert hall and a hotel with 120 rooms. Having suffered...
in Scheveningen. In the same year (1953), Melody Maker reported that a very hot sauce with a secret recipe, "Cab's secret”, was sold in a number of shops on Archer Street (East Finchley
East Finchley
East Finchley is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, in north London, and situated north-west of Charing Cross. Geographically it is somewhat separate from the rest of Finchley, with North Finchley and West Finchley to the north, and Finchley Central to the west.- History :The land on which...
) in London. Although popular among Cab’s friends for many years, the sauce never became a commercial success. At the end of 1953, Cab formed a cabaret act with Josie Woods "the Two Brown Birds of Rhythm". Again in Paris’s "Ring Side" club, this time announced as "Kab Kay”, he accompanied Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
on piano. In April, 1954 he played the role of “Kenneth - the coloured singer” in the film The Man Who Loved Redheads
The Man Who Loved Redheads
The Man Who Loved Redheads is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Harold French and starring Moira Shearer, John Justin and Roland Culver. The film is based on the play Who is Sylvia? by Terence Rattigan.-Cast:...
, written by Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
, directed by Harold French
Harold French
Harold French was an English director and actor of stage and screen. As an actor most of his roles occurred between 1912 and 1936. He did not garner as much attention as an actor as he would as a director. From 1940 to 1955 he had a several solid box-office successes...
and produced by British Lion
British Lion Films
British Lion Films Corporation is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Until 1976 they were also film distributors as British Lion Films Ltd, with a distributor filmography of 232 films. As a production company they are still active and have produced...
. The film is about an innocent boy who meets a red-haired girl (Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy , was an internationally famous Scottish ballet dancer and actress.-Early life:She was born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the daughter of actor Harold V. King...
), and can’t forget her. Cab Kaye received a salary of £35 per day.
During one of his tours in England (September 20, 1954), he sang with a band led by pianist Ken Moule
Ken Moule
Kenneth John Moule was an English jazz pianist, best known as a composer and arranger.-Biography:Born in Barking, Essex in 1925, Kenneth was the only child of Frederick and Ethal Moule...
and including Dave Usden (trumpet), Keith Barr
Keith Barr
Keith Barr is a former inter-county Gaelic footballer for Dublin. He played his club football with Erins Isle.-Sporting career:Barr made his inter county championship debut against Wicklow in 1989. Keith was on the 1995 All-Ireland winning team when Dublin narrowly defeated Tyrone...
, Roy Sidwell (tenor saxophone), Don Cooper
Don Cooper
Donald James Cooper is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball and the current pitching coach of the Chicago White Sox.-Early life:...
(bass), Arthur Watts (bass) and Lennie Breslaw (drums). Again contracted by impresario Lou van Rees, he toured the Netherlands in 1955-1956 and performed in the Flying Dutchman club in Scheveningen. Lou van Rees had the idea to form a big band with 12 band leaders who were not often heard on the Dutch radio, including Wil Hensbergen (Wil Hensbergen Orchestra), Max Woiski Sr. (La Cubana Orchestra), vibraphonist Eddy Sanchez (Swiss Air Trio), Johnny Kraaykamp (leader of the One Man Band), Wessel Ilcken and Cab Kaye.
Also in 1956 "showman" Cab Kaye played in Amsterdam’s Sheherazade jazz club with his 'All Star Quintet', consisting out of Rob Pronk (piano), Toon van Vliet (tenor sax), Dub Dubois (bass) and drummer Wally Bishop
Wallace Bishop
Wallace Bishop was an American swing jazz drummer.Bishop started on drums as a teenager, studying under Jimmy Bertrand...
. The club, nicknamed 'Zade' by friends, was located until 1962 in the Wagenstraat in Amsterdam and was a popular meeting place for jazz musicians. Later in 1956 Cab Kaye toured Germany and played in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and Köln
KOLN
KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials...
, followed in 1957 by touring England with the Eric Delaney
Eric Delaney
Eric Delaney was an English drummer and bandleader, popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.-Career:Delaney was born in Acton, London. Aged 16, he won the Best Swing Drummer award and later joined the Bert Ambrose Octet which featured George Shearing on piano...
Band Show with Marion Williams
Marion Williams
Marion Williams was an American gospel singer.-Early years:Marion Williams was born in Miami, Florida, to a religiously devout mother and musically inclined father. She left school when she was nine years old to help support the family, and worked as a maid, a nurse, and in factories and...
.
On August 31, 1957 Cab Kaye performed in 'Cab's Quintet' in the British television program Six-Five Special
Six-Five Special
The Six-Five Special is a British television programme launched in February 1957 when both television and rock and roll were in their infancy in Britain.-Description:...
(Season 1, episode 29) with Laurence “Laurie” Deniz (1st guitar) and his brother Joe Deniz (2nd guitar), Pete Blannin (bass) and Harry South
Harry South
Harry South was an English jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, who later moved into work for film and television....
(piano). Around this time Cab Kaye also performed in Oh Boy!, the first British teenage all-music show. Oh Boy an ABC
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
/ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
show produced by Jack Good
Jack Good (producer)
Jack Good is a pioneering former TV television producer, musical theatre producer, record producer, musician and painter of icons.-Career:...
who had earlier produced Six-Five Special
Six-Five Special
The Six-Five Special is a British television programme launched in February 1957 when both television and rock and roll were in their infancy in Britain.-Description:...
and knew Cab Kaye from that show. In the same year, 1957, Cab Kaye was voted eleventh in Melody Maker’s Jazz Music Magazine Poll. In 1959 he joined the ensemble of Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
in London which led to the recording of the album Humph Meets Cab (March 1960) with his characteristic witty vocals on pieces such as "Let Love Lie Sleeping".
Cab Kaye's popularity kept on growing. The Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...
announced on 25 August 1960 for the next day BBC TV Jazz Session featuring the Dill Quintet, the Bob Wallis
Bob Wallis
Robert 'Bob' Wallis was a British jazz musician, who had a handful of chart success in the early 1960s, during the UK traditional jazz boom.-Biography:...
Storyville Jazzmen and singer Cab Kaye. In the same year Cab Kaye came ninth place in Melody Maker’s Jazz Poll. First place that year went to the English jazz and blues singer George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
.
Swinging diplomat
On March 6, 1957 the Gold CoastGold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...
became under the name of Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
the first sub-Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
n African country to gain its independence in 1957. Three years later, on March 6, 1960, Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
became president of the republic. For Cab Kaye the independence of Ghana was an important political symbol. Two family members in high positions at the Ghanaian government, Tawiah Adamafio and CT Nylander, had brought Cab Kaye into contact with Ghanaian politics. After the independence of Ghana during the reign of Kwame Nkrumah, Cab Kaye was appointed to the Government Entertainments Officer and from 1961 Cab Kaye worked for the Ghana High commissioner’s headquarters in London as protocol officer. In this function he played a role in getting a Ghanaian passport for Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
whose South African passport had been revoked under the country's apartheid regime.
Probably partly influenced by both racist experiences and the euphoria on the independency of Ghana he disbanded with the anglicized version of his name (Cab Kaye) and called himself Kwamlah Quaye (some newspapers forgot the "h" in Kwamlah).
While in the Ghanaian Embassy for daytime work, he played at night in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
. A farewell special on Cab Kaye entitled Sswinging Diplomat was broadcasted by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. In Ronnie Scott's club a farewell party was organized for Cab Kaye under the slogan "He's goin 'home' with the best jazz in town".
Before leaving for Ghana Cab Kaye recorded the song he wrote together with William "Bill" Davis "Everything Is Go" with his 'Kwamlah Quaye Sextetto Africana'. With this band he made his first recordings in which he played guitar. This group consisted of guitarist Laurence "Laurie" Deniz (born in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
in 1924, his father came from Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
), bass: Chris O'Brien, bongos: Frank Holder, both of which came from British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
(now Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
) to serve in the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
(RAF) and Chris Ajilo at claves. "Everything is Go" was a tribute to the American astronaut John Glenn
John Glenn
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA's Mercury program as a member of NASA's original...
with its "get set, blast off, this man is heading for space" being a cheerful calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
piece, strangely interwoven with the melancholy of the astro nautical euphoria of the sixties. In 1962 (February 17) Cab Kaye gained fourth place in the Melody Maker poll of leading jazz musicians. The number was played at the opening of the exhibition of the Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
in Accra on May 29, 1962 by Joe Mensah.
Cab Kaye left London with big plans to work for the Ghana Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). Ghana should become the African Riviera and cultural center of modern Africa. Once arrived in Accra, he formed a duo with singer Mary Hyde
Mary Hyde
Mary Lord nee Hyde in the period 1855 to 1859 sued the Commissioners of the City of Sydney and won compensation for the sum of over £15,600 for the inundation of her property at Botany.Hyde is noted for her pertinacity...
with whom he regularly performed in the Star and other hotels in Accra .
In November 1961 Cab Kaye performed during a visit by Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
. In his function as "Entertainment Manager" for the "Ghana Hotels ltd." Cab Kaye was less successful. Although the concerts he organized were well visited, Cab Kaye could not get the dance competitions on Sunday and Monday of the ground.
Apparently this was very important in Accra, Ghana as it was reported in the Ghana Times (April 26, 1962) which caused Cab Kaye to finish his contract shortly afterwards. In 1963 back in the "Star Hotel" Cab Kaye joined with the drummer Guy Warren
Guy Warren
Guy Warren of Ghana or Kofi Ghanaba was a Ghanaian musician, best known as the inventor of Afro-jazz and as a member of The Tempos.- Biography :...
(later known as "Kofi Ghanaba" - son of Ghana) and the folk singer and activist Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
who, on a world tour, was very popular in Ghana as he was known for his statements about the equality of the black American population. Cab Kaye then played in Accra (including the, at that time, very famous "Tip-Toe gardens") and Lagos alternating with performances in New York (e.g. in the "Village door" in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
). On August 7, 1964 he played in a charity program O'Pataki (Pataki in the Yoruba language
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
can be translated as "important") to support the African culture with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and his quintet.
Politics
In the early sixties the Ghanaian “Ramblers Dance Band” covered Cab Kaye's highlifeHighlife
Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...
song entitled "Beautiful Ghana" under the new title "Work and Happiness". This song, released with "Decca Recordings West Africa", was frequently played during Kwame Nkrumah's regime as part of the political "Work and Happiness" program. As usual after a military coup (Kwame Nkrumah was deposed in 1966) the supporters of the previous regime got into trouble. This also happened to Cab Kaye, who had to explain his political views behind the "Work and Happiness" song (“Evening News", October 12, 1966). Fortunately his sister Norma was married in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
with Dr. J.T. Nelson-Cole and offered him a new home base in Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
. As this was the end of his political career the Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a "one African community". Differing types of Pan-Africanism seek different levels of economic, racial, social, or political unity...
of Kwame Nkrumah, calling for a politically united Africa, would remain one of the few political ideas which Cab Kaye supported the rest of his life.
Yet he never disengaged entirely from political life. From 1965 Cab Kaye played alternately in New York, Europe and Africa. He made good use of his cultural background from Africa and Europe. In the "New York Amsterdam News"(January 18, 1965) he had a letter printed with the lines: “I am proud, I am African "..." I am proud, I am black". This text, signed by Nii Lante Quaye (657 Crotona Park, Bronx) was consistent with the ideas of the emerging "Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
" movement.
While Cab Kaye was announced in New York under the name "Nii Lante Quaye" as a special act (for example in a flyer announcing Cab Kaye as a guest artist in the show of Ed Nixon Jr. better known as "Nick La Tour" (Baritone) in St. Stephan’s Methodist Church, Broadway on (May 22, 1966).The show master Cab Kaye was announced in Ghanaian flyers of this time as "MC” (Master of Ceremony) Cab Kaye. He performed regularly at the Ghanaian and Nigerian radio and television. On November 16, 1966 in "It's time for show biz" with the Spree City Stompers from Berlin, on January 6, 1967 he performs with “the Paramount Eight Dance Band" in the Ghanaian television on "Bandstand" and on July 30, 1967 as "MC" on the international pop festival in Accra. In May 1968 he acted with his nephews, the "Nelson Cole brothers", in Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
and then toured through Nigeria. The Nelson Cole brothers were his sister Norma's sons who formed the Soul Assembly with other artists. In 1996 Cab Kaye played again in Lagos (Federal Palace Hotel
Federal Palace Hotel
The Federal Palace Hotel is a 150 room hotel that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, located in the commercial hub of Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria.- History :The Federal Palace Hotel is a Sun International property...
) in a program including Fela Kuti
Fela Kuti
Fela Anikulapo Kuti , or simply Fela , was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.-Biography:...
and highlife
Highlife
Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...
bandleader Bobby Benson
Bobby Benson
Bobby Benson was an entertainer and musician who had considerable influence on the Nigerian music scene, introducing big band and Caribbean idioms to the Highlife style of popular West African music.-Life:...
.
Upon his return to England in 1970 he discovered that his daughter Terri Quaye
Terri Quaye
Theresa "Terri" Quaye, also Theresa Naa-Koshie is an English singer, pianist, and percussionist. She is the daughter of Cab Kaye and the older sister of Caleb Quaye and Finley Quaye....
(also known as Theresa Naa-Koshie
Terri Quaye
Theresa "Terri" Quaye, also Theresa Naa-Koshie is an English singer, pianist, and percussionist. She is the daughter of Cab Kaye and the older sister of Caleb Quaye and Finley Quaye....
) and his eldest son, Caleb Quaye
Caleb Quaye
Caleb Quaye , is an English Afro-European rock guitarist and studio musician best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with Elton John, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney and Hall & Oates...
and his band Hookfoot
Hookfoot
Hookfoot was a British rock band, active from 1970 to 1974.Formed by Caleb Quaye and three fellow DJM session musicians, Ian Duck , Roger Pope and David Glover , the band were also backing musicians for Elton John, appearing together on most of his early recordings for DJM...
, both having their own musical careers, where more famous in London than Cab Kaye himself. Back in London he began his second London career in Mike Leroy
Mike LeRoy
Mike LeRoy Successful entrepreneur - Writer and singer.Mike was the singer of the theme song to the 1965 cult classic film, A High Wind in Jamaica. he also sang 'with a little love' in 1970, which was subsequently used on the Attila the hun sketch of Monty Python's Flying Circus.-Bio:Mike...
's "Chez Club Cleo" (Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
) accompanied by Clive Cooper (bass) and Cecil 'Flash' Winston (drums). He soon became a much requested star in the London jazz circuit. Cab Kaye's daughter Terri, who started singing with her father and his bebop jazz band as a young girl, accompanied him at some events.
Around 1973 he was accompanied by Mike Greaves (Micky Greeve - drums, percussion), Phil Bates
Phil Bates
Phil Bates has been a member of many notable bands including Trickster and Quill, and was the lead guitarist, songwriter and joint lead vocalist for ELO Part II from 1993 through to 1999....
(bass) and Ray Dempsey (guitar). The following year he was one of the attractions at the "Black Arts Festival 1974" organized by the Commonwealth Institute
Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute was an educational charity connected with the Commonwealth of Nations, and the name of a building in West London formerly owned by the Institute...
in London. Besides performing at various events he made regular appearances at the BBC Club, an exclusive club for employees of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
together with Phil Bates
Phil Bates
Phil Bates has been a member of many notable bands including Trickster and Quill, and was the lead guitarist, songwriter and joint lead vocalist for ELO Part II from 1993 through to 1999....
and Tony Crombie
Tony Crombie
Anthony John "Tony" Crombie was an English jazz drummer, pianist, bandleader and composer. He was regarded as one of the finest jazz drummers and bandleaders, and occasional but very capable pianist and vibraphonist, to emerge in Britain, and as an energising influence on the British jazz scene...
(composer of “So Near, So Far" recorded by Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
).
Amsterdam; Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar
In the late seventies Cab Kaye moved to Amsterdam and became a member of Buma/StemraBUMA/STEMRA
BUMA/STEMRA are two private organizations in the Netherlands, the Buma Association and the Stemra Foundation that operate as one single company that acts as the Dutch collecting society for composers and music publishers.- History :The Buma Association was set up by Dutch music authors and...
(the Dutch copyright organization that oversees distribution of royalties among publishers, musicians, and writers) and the Dutch Association of Professional Improvising Musicians (BIM). In Amsterdam he performed with jazz musicians like Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales
Babs Gonzales , born Lee Brown, was an American jazz vocalist of the bebop era most notable for penning the song "Oop-Pop-A-Da", which was originally recorded and performed by his own band and was later made famous by Dizzy Gillespie . Babs was also once the chauffeur for Errol Flynn...
, funk jazz flutist Wally Shorts, Bert Koppelaar (trombonist), Hard Bop and Post Bop jazz bassist Wilbur Little
Wilbur Little
Wilbur Little was an African American jazz bassist known for Hard bop and Post-bop. He originally played piano, but switched to bass after serving in the military. In 1949 he moved to Washington, DC where he worked with "Sir" Charles Thompson among others. After that he was in J. J...
and conductor Boy Edgar (e.g. in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw). In the early years in Amsterdam he rented an apartment from the jazz saxophonist Rosa King
Rosa King
Rosa King was an American Jazz and blues saxophonist/singer who made her fame in Amsterdam and recorded many albums under a variety of labels.-Career:...
and became a local celebrity in the Amsterdam jazz scene. On October 1, 1979, he opened his own jazz club in the centre of Amsterdam,"Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar" at Beulingstraat 9, with his Dutch wife Jeannette. When not touring Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Portugal and Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
he performed five nights a week in his own Piano Bar, a meeting place for jazz greats. Frequent visitors included Rosa King, trombonist Slide Hampton
Slide Hampton
Locksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...
, television doctor and saxophonist Aart Gisolf, guitarist Dirk-Jan "Bubblin” Toorop, pianist David Mayer, singer Gerrie van der Klei, Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
, Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, Pia Beck and many others. In this period, Cab performed in many concerts in the Netherlands, including several with Max "Teawhistle" Teeuwisse in Den Oever
Den Oever
Den Oever is a village in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Wieringen, and lies about east of Den Helder...
and four times at the North Sea Jazz Festival
North Sea Jazz Festival
The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam...
. The first North Sea Jazz Festival performance was with his Cab Kaye Quartet on July 16, 1978; the second was Friday, July 10, 1981 with Akwaba Cab Kaye and his Afro Jazz; the third was in July, 1982, accompanied by Aart Gisolf and Nippy Noya
Nippy Noya
Nippy Noya is a Europe-based Indonesian percussionist and songwriter, specialising in congas, Kalimba, bongos, Campana, Güiro, Cabasa, shek, Caxixi, triangle and the Berimbau....
and the last time as a soloist on Sunday, July 10, 1983.
In the second half of the eighties Cab was regularly heard in the Victoria Hotel Amsterdam. On October 10, 1987 he performed in the "Night of Hilversum
Hilversum
is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...
”, a charity against polio organized by the Rotary Club, WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
and UNICEF. On May 21, 1988 Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar closed and since that time Cab Kaye was heard in public much less often than before. The final significant performance of Cab Kaye’s was on Sunday, September 8, 1996 at the Bimhuis
Bimhuis
The Bimhuis is a concert hall for jazz and improvised music in Amsterdam.With an average of 150 performances a year the Bimhuis is the main stage for these musical genres in the Netherlands....
in Amsterdam. Many musicians and jazz lovers, including Herman Openneer, Pim Grass, the Dutch jazz drummer John Engels and Rosa King, organized a very busy birthday party for the then 75-year old pianist. He was unable to sing due to his mouth floor cancer
Oral cancer
Oral cancer is a subtype of head and neck cancer, is any cancerous tissue growth located in the oral cavity. It may arise as a primary lesion originating in any of the oral tissues, by metastasis from a distant site of origin, or by extension from a neighboring anatomic structure, such as the...
, but enthusiastically played piano and jammed with many musicians. Subsequently, he performed only sporadically in smaller venues and privately in Amsterdam’s Dapperbuurt
Dappermarkt
The Dappermarkt is a market in the Dapperstraat in Amsterdam-east and is one of the busiest markets of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.In 1910, the Dapperstraat was officially designated by the municipality of Amsterdam as a market street. The Dappermarkt draws visitors from the all over the Netherlands...
. The last time Cab Kaye played piano (including "Jeannette You are my Love") was on March 12, 2000, at home, along with Rosa King.
Private life
Although born in London, Cab Kaye considered himself African. He married three times, first in 1939 to Theresa Austin, a jazz singer and daughter of a sailor from BarbadosBarbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
. Cab and Theresa often performed together. She and Cab had two daughters, Terri Quaye
Terri Quaye
Theresa "Terri" Quaye, also Theresa Naa-Koshie is an English singer, pianist, and percussionist. She is the daughter of Cab Kaye and the older sister of Caleb Quaye and Finley Quaye....
(born 8 November 1940, Bodmin
Bodmin
Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...
), Tanya Quaye and a son, Caleb Quaye
Caleb Quaye
Caleb Quaye , is an English Afro-European rock guitarist and studio musician best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with Elton John, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney and Hall & Oates...
(born 1948 in London). Cab met his second wife, a Nigerian named Evelyn, in the sixties in Ghana. Together, they moved back to England. After a brief affair in 1973 with Sharon McGowan, a jazz singer, he had a son, Finley Quaye
Finley Quaye
Finley Quaye is a British musician. He won the 1997 Mobo Award for best reggae act, and the 1998 BRIT Award for Best British Male Solo Artist.-Life:...
(born 25 March 1974, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
). Cab Kaye met his son Finley as an adult in 1997 at a concert of Finley's in the rock music venue and cultural center Paradiso
Paradiso (Amsterdam)
Paradiso is an iconic rock music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.-History:It is housed in a converted former church building that dates from the nineteenth century and that was used until 1965 as the meeting hall for a liberal Dutch religious group known as the "Vrije...
Amsterdam. Three generations: grandfather Caleb Jonas Quaye (Ernest Mope Desmond), Kwamlah Quaye (Cab Kaye) and youngest son Finley Quaye have all played, at different times, at Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
's Barrowlands, Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
's Wulfrun Hall
Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Wolverhampton Civic Hall is a music venue in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It has been one of the most important live music venues in the county for several decades. It is part of a complex also including Wulfrun Hall and the newer Little Civic...
and London's Cafe d'Paris.
His third wife, Jeannette, was Dutch. After marrying, he decided to settle in the Netherlands and became a Dutch citizen.
In the nineties, Cab Kaye was diagnosed with mouth floor cancer
Oral cancer
Oral cancer is a subtype of head and neck cancer, is any cancerous tissue growth located in the oral cavity. It may arise as a primary lesion originating in any of the oral tissues, by metastasis from a distant site of origin, or by extension from a neighboring anatomic structure, such as the...
. The man who had entertained countless people throughout his life with his singing thus lost the ability to speak. Until his death at age 78 (March 13, 2000) in the Dapperbuurt
Dappermarkt
The Dappermarkt is a market in the Dapperstraat in Amsterdam-east and is one of the busiest markets of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.In 1910, the Dapperstraat was officially designated by the municipality of Amsterdam as a market street. The Dappermarkt draws visitors from the all over the Netherlands...
, Cab Kaye lived in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
where he was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and in Accra (Ghana).
Cab Kaye's motto was "Truth is stranger than f(r)iction, (excuse my diction, I walk with a lisp)."
Discography
- Billy Cotton and his band- Aug. 27 1936 - CAR-4150-1 / Regal Zonophone MR2189
- Shoe-Shine boy - Cab Quay (vocals)
- Billy CottonBilly CottonWilliam Edward Cotton , better known as Billy Cotton, was a British band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the dance band era. Today, he is mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, although his musical talent emerged as early as the 1920s...
& his orchestra - A nice cup of tea; Volume 2 - recorded 1936-1941 (1CD0198188 BD5 VOCALIONVocalion RecordsVocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
- new release September 2001 - Vocalion CDEA 6053)- A Little Bit Later On - Cab Quay (vocals)
- Jazz At The Town Hall Ensemble - 30 March 1948 (Esquire RecordsEsquire RecordsEsquire Records is the name of two defunct record labels:*Esquire Records , jazz record label founded by Carlo Krahmer and Peter Newbrook in 1947. It issued recordings by British musicians, and others, under licence, from the American Prestige label, the Chicago blues label Delmark, and the Swedish...
10-032) - Ronnie ScottRonnie ScottRonnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
(ts), Johnny Dankworth (as), Reg Arnold (tp), Dennis Rose (p, tp), Jimmy SkidmoreJimmy SkidmoreJames Richard 'Jimmy' Skidmore was an English jazz tenor saxophonist born in London and father to tenor and soprano saxophonist Alan Skidmore, perhaps best-known for his work with George Shearing from 1950-1952...
(ts), Bernie Fenton (p), Joe Muddel (b), Jack FallonJack FallonJack Fallon was a British jazz bassist born in Canada.Fallon played violin before making double-bass his primary instrument at age 20. During World War II he played in a dance band in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and settled in Britain after his discharge...
(b), Carlo KrahmerEsquire RecordsEsquire Records is the name of two defunct record labels:*Esquire Records , jazz record label founded by Carlo Krahmer and Peter Newbrook in 1947. It issued recordings by British musicians, and others, under licence, from the American Prestige label, the Chicago blues label Delmark, and the Swedish...
(d), Cab Kaye (vocals)- If You'se a ViperIf You're a Viper"If You're a Viper" is a jazz song composed by Stuff Smith. It was first recorded by Smith and his Onyx Club Boys in 1936....
- That's My Desire
- If You'se a Viper
- Keith Bird and The Esquire Six - 13 October 1949 ( (Eng. Esquire m-7-96 - Esquire I0-046---5s. 9d.) - Keith Bird (cl), Tommy Pollard (vib), Ralph SharonRalph Sharon-Biography:Born in London, he emigrated to America in 1953, becoming a U.S. citizen five years later.By 1958, Ralph Sharon was recording with Tony Bennett, the start of a more than 40 year working relationship as Bennett's man behind the music on many Grammy winning studio recordings, and touring...
(p), Dave Goldberg (g), Charlie Short (b) and Carlo Krahmer (d)- How High The Moon
- Esquire Blues
- Tom's Tea Party
- Revol.
- Cab Kaye and his Band - May 1951 (Astraschall AW4001 & AWAW4005, Germany) - Dave WilkinsDave WilkinsDave Wilkins was a jazz trumpeter from Barbados.Wilkins first played in Salvation Army bands in his home country. In 1937 he moved to London, where he worked with Ken "Snakehips" Johnson's West Indian Swing Band among others. He recorded with Una Mae Carlisle and Fats Waller in 1938, and continued...
(tp), Sam Walker, George Tyndale (ts), Cyril Johnson (p), Owen Stephens (b) and Aubrey Henry (d).- Saturday Night Fish Fry (vocals)
- School-bop
- Mood Indigo
- Solitude
- Cab Kaye acc. by the Gerry Moore Trio - 1 March 1952 (Esquire 5-061 & 5-065) - Gerry MooreGerry MooreGerald Asher "Gerry" Moore was an English jazz pianist.Moore spent the years 1922-1939 working freelance in London, playing movie palaces and nightclubs...
(p), Cliff Dunn (g) and Bill Bramwell (b).- Hypnotized
- If I Could Hold You
- Everything I Have Is Yours
- Don't Never Stop Looking
- Cab Kaye acc. by the Norman Burns Quintet - 17 May 1952 (Esquire 5-079) - Johnnie Ashcombe (vib), Basil Tait (p), Len Williams (g), Bert Daniels (b) and Norman Burns (d).
- Pennies From Heaven
- Oh Lady Be Good
- Night And Day
- More Than You Know
- Cab Kaye with the Ken Moule Seven - 20 September 1954 (Esquire 10-406 (UK) 6S. sid.) - Cab Kaye (vocals, conga), Dave Usden (trumpet), Keith Barr (tenor saxophone), Roy Sidwell (tenor saxophone), Don Cooper (baritone saxophone), Ken MouleKen MouleKenneth John Moule was an English jazz pianist, best known as a composer and arranger.-Biography:Born in Barking, Essex in 1925, Kenneth was the only child of Frederick and Ethal Moule...
(piano), Arthur Watts (bass) and Lennie Breslow (drums).- Jelly Jelly Blues
- When I Hear That Conga Drum
- Humphrey Lyttelton Quartet - 15 maart 1960 (Humph meets Cab - Columbia RecordsColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
33SX1364) - Humphrey LytteltonHumphrey LytteltonHumphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
(trumpet), Ian Armit (piano), Pete Blannin (bass) and Eddie Taylor (drums)- Jealous
- Learnin' The Blues
- My Melancholy Baby
- You Can Depend On Me
- When You're Smiling
- Let Sleeping Love Lie
- Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band - 30 March 1960 (G Philips RecordsPhilips RecordsPhilips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...
8387641) - Humphrey Lyttelton (trompet), Ian Armit (piano), Pete Blannin (bass) and Eddie Taylor (drums)- I'm Gonna Lock My Heart
- High Class Baby
- Please don't talk about me when I'm gone
- Kwamlah Quaye Sextetto Africana - 1962 Melodisc - Cab Kaye (vocals and guitar), Laurie Deniz (guitar), Chris O'Brien (bas), Frank Holder (bongo's), Chris Ajilo (claves).
- Son of Africa (DA 2159)
- Don't you go away (DA 2158)
- Kwamlah Quaye Sextetto Africana - 1962 Melodisc - Cab Kaye (vocals and conga), Laurie Deniz (bas), Chris O'Brien (bas), Frank Holder (bongo's), Chris Ajilo (claves).
- Don’t You Go Away
- Everything Is Go
- Cab Kaye Trio - 23 December 1976 (Cab Kaye today - Riff, Leiden) - Chris Smildiger (bass), Ted Easton (drums) and Cab Kaye (piano)
- Me, Myself And I
- The Boogie That Makes You Moan
- Sweet Lorraine
- Ev'rything Stops For Tea
- Body And Soul
- What Can I Say Dear After I've Said I'm Sorry
- Pennies From Heaven
- If I Can't Sell It
- Lover Gal
- Alright, OK, You Win
- Cab Kaye Trio - 10 July 1981 (Cab Kaye live at the North Sea Jazz FestivalNorth Sea Jazz FestivalThe North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam...
1981 - Philips 6423 511) - Cab Kaye (vocals, piano), Aart Gisolf (saxophone), Joop Kooger (drums), Henk Kooger (bass)- Everyday
- You don't know what love is
- Lover man
- Them there eyes
- Pennies from heaven
- Boogie-woogie man
- God bless the child
- Me, myself and I
- Jeannette you are my love
- Harlem Cabaret (potpourri - Lulu's back in town, Your wig is gone, Poppity poppity pop)
- Lou van Rees presenteert: The album of the year' - 1982 - (Philips 6624 061) - Live recording
- Harlem Cabaret (potpourri - Lulu's back in town, Your wig is gone, Poppity poppity pop)
- Cab Kaye ´live´- The key - 20 augustus 1984 (Keytone, Amsterdam) - Live recorded in Cab Kaye's Jazz Pianobar in Amsterdam
- These foolish things
- Old man mose
- only you can explain
- I'm gonna lock my heart and trow away the key
- I'm through feelin blue over you
- In there
- Knock me a kiss
- What a wonderful world
- Where were you on the night of June 3RD
- Jeannette you are my love
- Akwilli waba - red peper
- Since I fell for you
- Teach me tonight
- Cab Kaye - the consul of swing - Victoria Blues - 14 March 1986 - (The Studio production, 140386 ) - Cab Kaye (Vocals/Piano)
- Willow weep for me
- Laughing at live
- Cab Kaye in Iceland - 18 June 1986 - (The Icelandic national radio) - Cab Kaye (vocals/piano), Gunnar Hrafnsson (bass), Gudmundur Steingrimsson (drums)
- I´ve got someone
- Lauging at life
- Obrigado
- Lady Bird
- Empty bed blues
- Cab's blues
- That jam in love
- 52nd Street (I remember Eroll)
- Farewell
- Cab Kaye in Iceland & Africa on Ice - October 1996 - (The Icelandic national radio)
- Son of Africa
- Ah kwili wa ba
- Mete U.T.C
- Mim smo bo
- Iceblue
- Billy Cotton & His Band - Things I Love About the 40's - 16 June 1998 - Additional Releases 2000
- Shoe Shine Boy - Cab Quay (vocals)
- Ginger Johnson & Friends - London Is The Place For Me, volume 4 – 2006 (new compilation of 1950s) - Honest Jon'sHonest Jon'sHonest Jon’s is an independent record shop based on Portobello Road in Ladbroke Grove, London, going since 1974. The shop is owned and run by Mark Ainley and Alan Scholefield, who took over from one of the original proprietors, ‘Honest’ Jon Clare...
Records - HJRLP 25 36728- Don't You Go Away
- Everything Is Go
- Billy Cotton & His Band - Wakey Wakey! - 6 September 2005 (Living Era)
- Shoe Shine Boy - Cab Quay (vocals)
Further reading
- Rainer E. Lotz, "Cab Kaye". Grove Jazz online
- Obituary Cab Kaye, Jazzhouse
- Obituary The Independent 17 Mar. 2000
- Obituary "Times of London" 27 Mar. 2000
- Val WilmerVal WilmerValerie Sybil Wilmer is an internationally noted photographer, jazz historian and writer, also specializing in gospel, blues, and British African-Caribbean music and culture....
: Cab Kaye. Musician who enlivened the British jazz scene and rediscovered his African roots GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 21 Mar. 2000 - Obituary NME (New Musical Express)
- Obituary - Jazz Journal International, v. 53 no. 6, June 2000.
- Obituary - Cadence, v. 26 no. 7, July 2000.
- Cab Kaye discography...- British modern jazz - from the 1940s through to mid 1960s
- Cab Kaye in "The Gramophone Archive"
- Cab Kaye in "Who's who of British jazz" van John Chilton
- The Mandrake Club and Cab Kaye...
- New Musical Express- 20-03-1953 - "Cab Kaye gets Big Film Break"
- The British Library Board - Sound Archive Catalogue
- Ginger Johnson & Friends - London Is The Place For Me volume 4
- Jack Martin: Introducing Cab Kaye, in: Anglo-German Swing Club News Sheet, #10 (Aug. 1950) (F); reprint, in: Horst Ansin & Marc Dröscher & Jürgen Foth & Gerhard Klußmeier (eds.): Anglo-German Swing Club. Als der Swing zurück nach Hamburg kam... Dokumente 1945-1952, Hamburg 2003 [book: Dölling und Galitz Verlag], p. 231-232
- Jack Martin: Unser "Date" mit Cab Kaye, in: Anglo-German Swing Club News Sheet, #10 (Aug. 1950); reprint, in: Horst Ansin & Marc Dröscher & Jürgen Foth & Gerhard Klußmeier (eds.): Anglo-German Swing Club. Als der Swing zurück nach Hamburg kam... Dokumente 1945-1952, Hamburg 2003 [book: Dölling und Galitz Verlag], p. 235-238
- Cab Kaye launches all-coloured band, Melody Maker, 12 Mar. 1955, p. 11
- Laurie Morgan: Cab Kaye, Jazz at Ronnie Scott's, #124 (May/Jun.2000), p. 12
- Obituary - Overleden: Cab Kaye, NJA Bulletin, #36 (Jun 2000), p. 18
- Val Wilmer: Obituaries. Cab Kaye, Jazz Journal, 53/6 (Jun. 2000), p. 15, 53
- Larmes. Cab Kaye, Jazz Hot, #573 (Sep. 2000), p. 6
- Pim Gras: The Cab Kaye Story, NJA Bulletin, #37 (Sep.2000), p. 17-18
- The rough guide to jazz - Ian CarrIan CarrIan Carr was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator.-Early years:Carr was born in Dumfries, Scotland, the elder brother of Mike Carr...
, Digby FairweatherDigby FairweatherDigby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...
, Brian PriestleyBrian PriestleyBrian Priestley is an English jazz writer, pianist and arranger.Priestley began studying music at age 8, and in the 1960s began arranging jazz pieces for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and gained a degree in modern languages from Leeds University...
- 2005, Rough Guides Limited. ISBN 1-84353-256-5 - Page 430
- Cab Kaye in the Dutch Wikipedia
- Cab Kaye in the German Wikipedia