Jazz

1932 · réf. List3818 — New York City 1932. Silver gelatin photograph measuring 8 x 10 inches. Stage photograph of Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra with Calloway at center before the band brass and reed sections drums bass guitar and stage lighting visible. Verso with mounting residue and manuscript note reading in part "from Irondome Bessemer album" or similar. Some wear creasing toning and mounting residue; very good. A large stage photograph of Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra corresponding to a known 1932 image of the band made to mark the arrival of trumpeter Doc Cheatham. The photograph shows Calloway at center bending forward in his characteristic theatrical posture with the orchestra arranged behind him on the Cotton Club stage. By 1932 Calloway had become one of the defining entertainers of the Cotton Club era. He had taken over the Missourians in 1930 and the success of "Minnie the Moocher" in 1931 helped make him a national figure. The orchestra was also being reshaped during these years with musicians such as Doc Cheatham Morris White Walter "Foots" Thomas Benny Payne and others forming the sound and stage presentation of Calloway's early 1930s band.1 Mills Music used this same image in another press photograph indicating that it functioned as a promotional view of Calloway and the orchestra rather than merely as a private stage snapshot. 1 Jean-François Pitet "Morris 'Fruit' White: from the Missourians' banjo to Calloway's guitar" The Hi de Ho Blog May 20 2021 accessed July 21 2026 https://www.thehidehoblog.com/blog/2021/05/morris-fruit-white-from-the-missourians-banjo-to-calloways-guitar. . unknown