Minnie the Moocher
Context
Co-credited to Cab Calloway and Irving Mills, the song was recorded on March 3, 1931, in New York for Brunswick by an orchestra drawn from the Missourians. Inspired by Willie the Weeper, it rests on a scatted call-and-response refrain that Calloway said he improvised after forgetting the lyrics at the Cotton Club. The first jazz record to sell over a million copies, it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Recording Registry in 2019.
In the genealogy of jazz
This track belongs to Harlem: Henderson, Redman, Ellington, Vocal jazz, scat, vocalese. Among the origins and influences of Harlem: Henderson, Redman, Ellington: Chicago, Stride (Harlem piano).