47 Facts About Cab Kaye

Cab Kaye, known as Cab Quay, Cab Quaye and Kwamlah Quaye, was born on St Giles High Street in Camden, London, to a musical family.

Cab Kaye's Ghanaian great-grandfather was an asafo warrior drummer and his grandfather, Henry Quaye, was an organist for the Methodist Mission church in the former Gold Coast, now called Ghana.

When Cab Kaye was four months old, his father was killed in a railway accident in Blisworth, Northamptonshire, on 27 January 1922, on his way to perform in a concert.

British radiation therapy was still in its infancy, and Cab Kaye's treatment was experimental.

At fourteen, Cab Kaye began to visit nightclubs where black musicians were welcome, such as The Shim Sham and The Nest; he won first prize in a song contest, a tour with the Billy Cotton band.

Three days after Cab Kaye enlisted, Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and saxophonist David Williams were killed on 8 March 1941, when a bomb fell on the Cafe de Paris nightclub in London's West End where they were performing.

Around this time Cab Kaye's mother was killed when her house in Portsmouth was the only house on her street to be hit by a bomb.

Cab Kaye's ship was hit by a torpedo in the Pacific Ocean in 1942.

Cab Kaye was saved, but the convoy continued to be attacked by enemy ships, and during the following three nights two other ships were sunk.

In 1946, Cab Kaye sang for the British troops in Egypt and India with Leslie "Jiver" Hutchinson's "All Coloured Band".

On 13 October 1949 Cab Kaye recorded with clarinettist Keith Bird and The Esquire Six.

Cab Kaye's band was, in 1948, the first musical ensemble featuring people of colour to play in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

In Paris at the end of the 1940s early 1950s, Cab Kaye met Tadd Dameron, who was playing with Miles Davis.

Also in Paris, Cab Kaye reunited with Roy Eldridge, who introduced him to Don Byas.

In 1951, Cab Kaye recorded for Astraschall Records in Germany with George Tyndale, Dave Wilkins, Sam Walker, Cyril Johnson, Owen Stephens and Aubrey Henry.

Cab Kaye regularly accompanied saxophonist Don Byas on piano in the early 1950s.

In 1951, Cab Kaye played a small role in the movie Sensation in San Remo directed by Georg Jacoby.

Cab Kaye led multi-ethnic bands usually consisting of musicians from the UK, Africa, and the West Indies.

Cab Kaye turned to variety shows, according to Melody Maker in 1953, and he founded a theatre booking agency, Black and White Productions, to book small theatre and film roles for himself and other musicians.

Cab Kaye performed in the Kurhaus at Scheveningen in the Netherlands in 1953.

Also in 1956, Cab Kaye played at the Sheherazade jazz club in Amsterdam's with his All Star Quintet consisting of Rob Pronk, Toon van Vliet, Dub Dubois and drummer Wally Bishop.

Later in 1956 Cab Kaye toured Germany and played in Hamburg, Dusseldorf, and Koln, followed in 1957 by a tour of England with the Eric Delaney Band Show with Marion Williams.

That same year, Cab Kaye was voted eleventh in Melody Makers Jazz Music Magazine Poll.

Cab Kaye appeared again on Six-Five Special on 1 March 1958.

For Cab Kaye, Ghana's independence was an important political symbol.

Cab Kaye played a role in getting a Ghanaian passport for Miriam Makeba, whose South African passport had been revoked under the country's apartheid regime.

Cab Kaye discarded the Anglicized version of his name and called himself "Kwamlah Quaye", though some newspapers missed the "h".

On 17 February 1962 Cab Kaye received fourth place in the Melody Maker poll of jazz musicians.

Cab Kaye left London with plans to work for the Ghanaian Industrial Development Corporation.

Cab Kaye performed during a visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Ghana in November 1961.

Cab Kaye played in Accra and in Lagos, alternating with performances in New York.

Cab Kaye had to explain his political views behind the "Work and Happiness" song.

Cab Kaye was announced in New York under the name "Nii Lante Quaye" as a special act, as he was in a flyer announcing Cab Kaye as a guest artist in the show of Ed Nixon Jr.

Cab Kaye performed regularly on Ghanaian and Nigerian radio and television: on 16 November 1966 in It's Time for Show Biz with the Spree City Stompers from Berlin; on 6 January 1967 with "the Paramount Eight Dance Band" on Ghanaian television's Bandstand; and on 30 July 1967 as MC at the international pop festival in Accra.

In 1996 Cab Kaye played again in Lagos at the Federal Palace Hotel in a program including Fela Kuti and highlife bandleader Bobby Benson.

Cab Kaye began his second London career in Mike Leroy's Chez Club Cleo in Knightsbridge accompanied by Clive Cooper and Cecil "Flash" Winston.

Cab Kaye became a much-requested presence on the London jazz circuit.

Cab Kaye made regular appearances at the BBC Club with Phil Bates and Tony Crombie.

Cab Kaye opened Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar in the centre of Amsterdam on 1 October 1979 at Beulingstraat 9, with his Dutch wife Jeannette.

Cab Kaye gave many concerts in the Netherlands, including several with Max "Teawhistle" Teeuwisse in Den Oever and four times at the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Cab Kaye regularly performed at the Victoria Hotel, Amsterdam, in the second half of the 1980s.

Cab Kaye was unable to sing due to his mouth floor cancer but enthusiastically played piano with many musicians.

Cab Kaye performed sporadically in smaller venues and privately in Amsterdam's Dapperbuurt.

Cab Kaye was married three times, first in 1939 to Theresa Austin, a jazz singer and daughter of a sailor from Barbados.

Cab Kaye met his second wife, a Nigerian named Evelyn, in the 1960s in Ghana.

Cab Kaye met his son Finley as an adult in 1997 following a concert of Finley's in the rock music venue and cultural centre Paradiso Amsterdam.

Cab Kaye was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the North Sea and in Accra.