As a person interested in history (and black history in particular), I was curious to find out who was listed as being born on Dec. 25th, the date celebrated by Christians as the day Jesus of Nazareth was born. Cab Calloway was on quite a few lists, along with other famous names like Humphrey Bogart and Sir Isaac Newton.
But none of the more popular “famous people” lists included the name of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
I am not a student of European classical music, and first encountered Joseph Bologne when researching the history of “Fencing and black fencing masters” for Black Kos.
Henry Angelo, who ran a famous fencing academy in London, wrote of Saint-Georges that:
"Never did any man combine such suppleness with so much strength. He excelled in every physical exercise he took up, and was also an accomplished swimmer and skater…He could often be seen swimming across the Seine with only one arm, and in skating his skill exceed everyone else’s. As to the pistol, he rarely missed the target. In running he was reputed to be one of the leading exponents in the whole of Europe".
Inevitably the exotic and brilliant Saint-Georges soon dazzled Parisian society and his company was fought over. When he was confronted, as he was from time to time, by jealous hostility, his charm and impeccable manners soon disarmed his opponent. Few would dare challenge him to a duel and on one occasion, when he was slapped by a well-known violinist, he declined to fight on the grounds that he had far too much respect for his opponent. Such was his reputation that Saint-Georges became known as "the god of arms"; he became one of the leading authorities on the art and science of arms, taught as a master and was admitted to the Royal Academy as a professor.
It’s fascinating that the Chevalier was not only famed in Europe for his athletic prowess—he was also famous for his skill as a violinist and composer. In most of the contemporary articles about him he is dubbed “The Black Mozart,” which is problematic since Bologne was born before Mozart and was famous in his own right. That the son of a plantation owner and an enslaved woman rose to the height of fame in Europe is a story that should be a film or stage play. Paging Lin-Manuel Miranda!
A fascinating look at his history is detailed in The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow, by Gabriel Banat.
The Chevalier de Saint-Georges, born Joseph Bologne, was the son of an African slave and a French plantation owner on the island of Guadeloupe. The story of his improbable rise in French society, his life as a famous fencer, celebrated violinist-composer and conductor, and later commander of a colored regiment in the French Revolution, should, on the facts alone, gladden the heart of the most passionate romance novelist. Yet, the information disseminated about this illustre inconnu is found in an extravagent nineteenth-century novel, which contains more fiction than fact. Unfortunately, many of the author's flights of fancy have found their way into serious works about Saint-Georges. Gabriel Banat has set about systematically dispelling the confusion, for the real story is easily as fascinating as any flight of fancy. Gabriel Banat has been a professional violinist all his life; recitalist and member of the New York Philharmonic, he has systematically scoured the violin repertory for interesting and even unknown music. He came across the works of St. Georges and was fascinated by the freshness and charm of these 18th-century compositions. Eventually, he edited a critical edition of all the violin music and, inevitably, began a systematic investigation into the life of this intriguing and multifaceted individual, utilizing archives of the French Land Army, official clippings and untapped personal diaries of St. Georges' contemporaries. Banat is the author of an authoritative monograph on St. Georges in the Black Music Research Journal.
His early rise to musical fame is well-documented.
Saint-Georges made his public début as a soloist with the Concert des Amateurs in 1772, performing his two Violin Concertos Op.2. According to the Mercure de France the works "received the most rapturous applause, both for its [sic] excellent execution and for the composition itself". In 1775, two years after the publication of Op.2, the publisher Bailleux acquired a six-year copyright on Saint-Georges’s future concertos. By 1775 Saint-Georges was so well established as a composer, soloist and orchestra director, that he was considered for the post of artistic director of the Royal Academy of Music, the Opéra. According to Baron von Grimm in his Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique (1776), Saint-Georges’s nomination collapsed in the face of strong opposition from some of the female artists at the Opéra, including the famous singers Sophie Arnould and Rosalie Levasseur. Baron Grimm described Saint-Georges to his readers as:
"a young American known as the Chevalier de St-George, who combines the most gentle manners with incredible skill in all physical exercises and very great musical talent… but the artistes nevertheless at once addressed a petition to the Queen to beg Her Majesty that their honour and the delicacy of their conscience made it impossible for them to be subjected to the orders of a mulatto". We do not know how Saint-Georges reacted in the face of such obvious discrimination but it must have been a devastating reminder that however brilliant his achievements he would always be regarded by many as a freak, a half-breed, half a man. Of course he was spectacularly equipped to deflect such - his sword alone was a fearsome reminder of the respect due to him – but his dazzling talent was enough to guarantee that he would always have his enemies.
In 1777 Saint-Georges made his début as an opera composer with Ernestine at the Comédie-Italienne. As is the case with many composers, the dramatic flair which served him so well in instrumental music proved largely unsuited to the theatre and although the work was applauded in private performances at the theatre of Mme de Montesson, who was secretly married to the Duke of Orleans, it lasted but a single night at the Comédie Italienne. Nonetheless, both the Mercure de France and Le Journal de Paris found things to praise in the music and hoped Saint-Georges would continue to write for the theatre. Saint-Georges’s affiliation with the Duke of Orleans went deeper than music and the duke put him in charge of his hunting retinue at his seat in Le Raincy. After the disbanding of the Amateurs in January 1781, probably due to financial problems, Saint-Georges founded the Concert de la Loge Olympique, the orchestra for whom Count d’Ogny commissioned Haydn to compose his brilliant set of six ‘Paris’ symphonies. Saint-Georges acted as the go-between and, according to the American scholar Barry S Brook, he actually travelled to Austria to meet the most famous composer in Europe. Saint-Georges rehearsed the six symphonies and directed their triumphant premieres at the end of 1787.
Without further ado, let us enjoy some of his work.
Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint Georges Symphonies 1. Symphony concertante for 2 Violins, Op.6 no.1 in C major 0:00
2. Symphony concertante for 2 Violins, Op.6 no.2 in B flat major 15:11
3. Symphony concertante for 2 Violins, Op.9 no.1 in C major 39:56
4. Symphony concertante for 2 Violins, Op.9: no.2 in A major 54:06 Michal Pospisil, Violin (3,4) Jiri Zilak, Violin (1-4) Miroslav Vilimec, Violin (1,2) Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra Jiri Malát , Conductor (1,2) Frantisek Preisler Jr., Conductor (3,4)
'Adagio in F minor' by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (edited by Dominique-René de Lerma), performed by pianist Raymond Jackson (pictured above).
Fast forward more than 160 years to the United States, where a black man also born on Christmas Day rose to the height of fame in the world of one of America’s classic musical genres: jazz. He shares a history similar to Saint-Georges. Some genealogical researchers have looked into his ancestry:
Cabell is an unusual name - I thought perhaps it was a surname. In searching the census and slave records, I believe that Cab and his sister, Blanche's ancestors were slaves on the plantation of Paul Carrington Callaway. Paul was a very wealthy physician and land owner in Nelson Co., VA. Paul Carrington Callaway's mother's name was Mary Eliza Cabell. The Cabell family were also very wealthy land owners in VA. Paul named his daughter Eliza Cabell Callaway. She was born about 1844. At about that same time, a slave was born on his plantation and named Cabell Callaway. This Cabell was the grandfather of Cab Callaway.
Calloway differs from Saint-Georges in that he grew up in a middle-class black family.
Cab Calloway's memoirs tell his story of growing up in a segregated Baltimore:
He was the son of middle-class professionals. His mother, Martha Eulalia Reed, was a Morgan State College graduate who taught school. His father, Cabell Calloway, graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and worked as a lawyer ...
Born on Christmas Day 1907 in Rochester, N.Y., Mr. Calloway moved to Baltimore as a 10-year-old child with his family -- he was one of four children -- to his grandfather's house at 1017 Druid Hill Ave. and later lived at 1306 Madison Ave. Mr. Calloway grew up in a highly segregated Baltimore that denied black workers access to skilled jobs. Restrictive covenants kept blacks from buying houses in many neighborhoods. Theaters and restaurants either barred them or required them to use the side or back entrances. Department stores that were open to black customers did not permit them to try on clothes before buying them.
Even so, Mr. Calloway said, discrimination did not mar his childhood. "White people have given me hell over the years but it wasn't so bad when we were kids," he wrote. "All of us black kids went to all-black schools and we lived in streets that were black. When we played with white boys, it was because we wanted to, not because we had to. And there was very little social mixing in Baltimore."Speaking of his middle-class upbringing, Mr. Calloway wrote, "Not all blacks in Baltimore had that kind of life in 1920. . . . There was an area in Northwest Baltimore known as Lung Block. It was bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Druid Hill Avenue, below where I lived, and Biddle and Preston streets. The area was called Lung Block because so many Negroes down there had tuberculosis."
The memoir referenced in this article was titled Of Minnie the Moocher & Me:
From the back streets of Baltimore where he hustled as a kid, through the jazz clubs of Chicago in the raw and roaring twenties, to the Cotton Club, Hollywood, Paris, and beyond, here in his own words is the story of Cab Calloway - the man who made Minnie the Moocher a household heroine and became one of the most respected jazz musicians and best loved entertainers in America. He sang and danced like no other performer of his time. Tall, slender, handsome and resplendent in a white zoot suit, his presence on stage was electric. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' he'd sing. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' the audience would answer. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' he'd intone. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' they'd roar back. And on it would go until the crowd was singing and stomping and dancing in the aisles. It was the Great Depression, but he made them forget. More than that, he made them happy. That has always been Cab Calloway's profession - and the secret of his monumental success - knowing how to make people happy. He has entertained presidents and crowned heads of Europe, Mr. and Mrs. America (as they were then called) over network radio and the first integrated audiences in the South - as well as those still segregated by a rope down a concert hall. He has starred in Broadway shows, made scores of movies, and written hundreds of songs. He has worked - and played - with the greats of his profession from Louis Armstrong to Lena Horne, Duke Ellington to Al Jolson, Dizzy Gillespie to Bill Robinson....
Another suggested read is Hi-de-ho: The Life of Cab Calloway, by Alyn Shipton.
Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the "Hi-de-ho" chorus of "Minnie the Moocher," Cab Calloway exuded a warm charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans. In Hi-de-ho: The Life of Cab Calloway, author Alyn Shipton sheds new light on Calloway's life and career, explaining how he traversed racial and social boundaries to become one of the country's most beloved entertainers. Drawing on first-hand accounts from Calloway's family, friends, and fellow musicians, the book traces the roots of this music icon. Beginning in obscure Baltimore nightclubs and culminating in his replacement of Duke Ellington at New York's famed Cotton Club, the book shows how Calloway honed his gifts of scat singing and call-and-response routines. His career as a bandleader was matched by his genius as a talent-spotter, evidenced by his hiring of such jazz luminaries as Ben Webster, Dizzy Gillespie, and Jonah Jones. As the swing era waned, Calloway reinvented himself as a musical theater star, appearing as Sportin' Life in "Porgy and Bess" in the early 1950s; in later years, Calloway cemented his status as a living legend through cameos on "Sesame Street" and his show-stopping appearance in the wildly popular The Blues Brothers movie, bringing his trademark "hi-de-ho" refrain to a new generation of audiences.
Here’s the Blues Brothers piece that introduced Cab to new audiences:
And the original:
From his New York Times obituary:
Mr. Calloway, who gave up law school and spurned an offer to play basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters to pursue his music, led one of the most successful bands in the Big Band era. He later toured the world playing Sportin' Life in "Porgy and Bess," a role that George Gershwin, who composed the score, had modeled on Mr. Calloway's colorful performing style. The trademark Calloway image, which combined an almost cat-like grace on the bandstand with a singing style that could be slyly insinuating one moment and wildly exuberant the next, came into full bloom on a night in 1931 when he was leading his band in a radio broadcast from the Cotton Club in Harlem.
He had recently written "Minnie the Moocher," a new radio theme song for his band. The song combined a melody that was very close to the band's previous theme, "St. James Infirmary," with lyrics patterned on those of two other popular songs of the day, "Willie the Weeper" and "Minnie the Mermaid." As he started to sing the song, Mr. Calloway suddenly realized that he could not remember the lyrics. "I couldn't leave a blank there as I might have done if we weren't on the air," he wrote in his autobiography, "Of Minnie the Moocher and Me." "I had to fill the space so I started to scat-sing the first thing that came into my mind."
What he scatted was: "Hi-de-hi-de-hi- de-ho. Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-hee. Oodlee-odlye-odlyee-oodlee-doo." "The crowd went crazy," Mr. Calloway recalled. "I asked the band to follow me. I sang 'Ho-de-hi-de-hi-de-do.' And the band responded. I sang, 'Dwaa-de-dwaa-de-dwaa-de-doo.' I asked the audience to join in. They hollered back and nearly brought the roof down."
One of my favorites:
Cab Calloway reveals insider information on Harlem in the '30s with his vivid narration that illustrates an animated map of the neighborhood's jazz clubs and best fried chicken joints. Calloway's voice is warm with fond memories of an important time in New York; the Harlem Renaissance.
As mentioned above, Calloway introduced young talent to his audiences—like pianist Dorothy Donegan.
From Sensations Of 1945. Dorothy Donegan (April 6, 1922 -- May 19, 1998) was an American classically trained jazz pianist primarily known for performing in the stride piano and boogie-woogie style. She also played bop, swing jazz, and classical music.
Whether you are a fan of European classical or American big band jazz, Christmas Day brought us musical gifts from a king of strings and a king of swing.
Enjoy and have a happy—and hopefully music-filled—holiday.