C

Cab Calloway was born into a middle-class family in Rochester, New York, and moved to Baltimore when he was eleven. A rebellious youth, he spent almost as much time at the racetrack as in school, but he did manage two years of classical voice training during his teens. He was more attracted to ragtime and jazz, and the glamour of entertainment in general, than to his studies, and picked up work as a jazz singer and drummer at speakeasies in Baltimore. He often encountered his teachers at these illegal clubs, but he and they maintained their respective silence, and Calloway continued to perform.