Cab Calloway’s Jive Jubilee of Songs Music Sheet

Cab Calloway Harlem’s Cotton Club

Ephemera and pamphlets

[African American] [Music] Cab Calloway’s Jive Jubilee of Songs. New York: Mills Music Inc., 1942. First edition. Sheet music compilation in original green-and-yellow pictorial wrappers featuring a dynamic photographic portrait of Calloway mid-performance, baton in hand. 9" x 12". 48 pages. This compilation celebrates the enduring legacy of jazz showman, vocalist, and bandleader Cab Calloway, whose flamboyant style, linguistic innovation, and musical brilliance helped define Harlem’s Cotton Club era and the swing generation. Best known for his 1931 breakthrough hit “Minnie the Moocher”—the first jazz recording by a Black artist to sell over a million copies—Calloway popularized scat singing and brought an energetic theatricality to big band performance. The Jive Jubilee gathers a wide selection of Calloway’s signature tunes, including “St. James Infirmary,” “Moonglow,” “Dinah,” “Happy as the Day is Long,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Geechy Joe,” and “The Scat Song,” many of which became standards of the jazz and swing repertoire. The edition also boasts Calloway’s iconic “Jive Dictionary,” an innovative lexicon of African American vernacular slang that cemented his cultural influence and served as an essential primer for understanding the evolving language of swing-era cool. Calloway’s impact was not limited to music. A vital artifact of both African American musical heritage and the mass dissemination of Black performance culture in print form, this music book stands as a testament to Calloway’s unmatched charisma and the broader swing-era aesthetic. Covers disbound, edge wear, minor dog eared corners. Textblock is tight and pages mostly clean. Overall good condition.

Item #22011

Price: $225.00