Dead Musicians 5/6/11: Chinatown Key-Bumps With Cab Calloway

[EDITORS NOTE] On this gorgeous Friday we’re glad to debut a new column by the illustrious Brooklyn-based writer and musician Michael Leviton. Michael’s got exceptional taste when it comes to the old stuff, and for “Dead Musicians” he’ll break down his favorite live performances from earlier eras. He starts the column off this week with ridiculous performance by Cab Calloway. Enjoy! __ Plenty of musicians sing about drugs, but Cab Calloway goes further than the rest in this 1932 performance—he actually pantomimes cutting and snorting lines of cocaine. After one of these mimed bumps, at around 1:36 in this video, he erupts in an ecstatic scat impression of a cocaine high.“Kicking the Gong Around” is one of many songs he wrote about the 1930s Chinatown drug scene. In this one, Calloway tells us about Minnie the Moocher, an opium addict hiding from her ex-boyfriend in a cocaine den. Apparently, Minnie boyfriend-hops from junkie to junkie to maintain her opium supply, ditching a guy when he runs out of drugs. Calloway wrote “The Hepster’s Dictionary,” so he’s good to listen to for slang ideas. For example, “cokey” is clearly cooler than “cokehead.” And it’s pretty good to refer to smoking opium as “kicking the gong around.” Though this clip is most notable for its drug-addict mime routine, it also contains my favorite Calloway dance number. Weird, far-out dancing usually strikes me as artsy and ridiculous, but Calloway always manages to look cool, even when bending over and walking around with his butt up and arms dangling, or when doing a dainty, effeminate strut. These moves make no sense and hardly count as dancing, but they kill me. It’s crazy to think of him coming up with this stuff. In the 1980’s, Michael Jackson watered down a lot of Calloway’s dance moves and made them his own. You might recognize the moment when Calloway spins and lands in the splits as a Michael Jackson staple. He finishes his dance with a sort of reverse moonwalk, sliding forward on his planted feet. Calloway actually lived to see Michael Jackson dance and commented that “the moonwalk” was originally called “the buzz,” a much hipper name.