CAB CALLOWAY - Hotcha Razz-Ma-Tazz

Legendary bandleader Cab Calloway was born in Rochester, New York on Christmas Day in 1907. In 1918, after the death of his father, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he worked as a shoe shine and a newsboy while attending school. Cab was introduced to jazz music and performing by his older sister Blanche - a jazz singer and band leader in Baltimore. After meeting jazz pianist Tommy Jones and drummer Chick Webb, Cab was soon performing regularly in Baltimore nightclubs. While touring with his sister in a musical - Plantation Days - Cab ended up in Chicago, where he briefly attended Lincoln University studying law. In Chicago he met Louis Armstrong - who taught him how to scat. Cab's big break came in 1929 when Duke Ellington asked Cab Calloway and His Orchestra to temporarily replace him as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club. In 1934 - the year after the end of prohibition - Cab Calloway recorded a song about a "new dance craze", Hotcha Razz-Ma-Tazz.