| Cab Kaye | |
|---|---|
Photo Dixie Solleveld |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Nii-lante Augustus Kwamlah Quaye |
| Also known as | Cab Quaye, Cab Quay, Kwamlah Quaye, Kwamla Quaye, Nii Lante Quaye, Kab Kay |
| Born | London, UK September 3, 1921 |
| Origin | Camden, London, UK |
| Died | Amsterdam, The Netherlands March 13, 2000 (aged 78) |
| Genres | jazz blues bebop |
| Occupations | Musician, Composer, Entertainer |
| Instruments | Vocals Drum Piano Guitar |
| Years active | 1936–1996 |
Nii-lante Augustus Kwamlah Quaye, better known as Cab Kaye (London, September 3, 1921 – Amsterdam, March 13, 2000) was an English-Ghanaian-Dutch jazz musician, bandleader, entertainer, drummer, guitarist, pianist, songwriter and singer. His singing was influenced by Billie Holiday and he often accompanied himself on piano with a graceful, rhythmic style. He effortlessly combined blues, bebop, stride and scat with the music of his African and Ghanaian musical heritage.
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Cab Kaye, also known as Cab Quay, Cab Quaye and Kwamlah Quaye, was born on St. Giles High Street in Camden, London to a musical family. Cab’s mother, Doris Balderson, sang in English music halls. His Ghanaian great-grandfather was an asafo warrior drummer. His grandfather, Henry Quaye, was an organist for the Methodist Mission church in the former Gold Coast, now called Ghana. His father, Caleb Jonas Quaye (born 1895 in Accra, Ghana), performed under the name Ernest Mope Desmond as musician, band leader, pianist and percussionist. With his blues piano style, Caleb Jonas Quaye became popular around 1920 in London and Brighton with his band “The Five Musical Dragons” in Murray’s Club with, among others, Arthur Briggs, Sidney Bechet and George "Bobo" Hines. Cab Kaye would never know his father. On January 27, 1922, on his way to performing in a concert, Caleb Jonas Quaye lost his life in a railroad accident in Blisworth, Northamptonshire.[1] Cab was four months old. Cab, his mother and sister Norma moved to Portsmouth, where a life insurance policy provided temporary financial support. He attended primary school at Saint John's elementary school. Between ages nine and twelve he spent three years in the hospital while a tumor in his neck was irradiated. British radiation therapy was still in its infancy and Cab Kaye’s treatment was experimental. A scar remained on the left side of his neck for the rest of his life. After being discharged from the hospital, he briefly attended Hilsea Secondary School until 1935. Possibly due to his mother’s alcohol problems, he was found on the streets more frequently than in school. Cab’s first instrument was the timpani. A Canadian soldier introduced him to this instrument and taught him how to count and use the mallets. After a job selling horse manure and a few rounds as a boxer, the fourteen-year old Cab Kaye visited nightclubs where coloured musicians were welcome (including "Shim Sham" and "The Nest"). He won first prize in a song contest: a tour with the Billy Cotton band. Here he met the African-American trombonist and tap dancer Ellis Jackson. Ellis Jackson convinced Billy Cotton to engage Cab as an assistant to Billy Cotton and a singer in his band. Originally engaged as a tap dancer with Billy Cotton’s show band in 1936, Cab recorded his first song, "Shoe Shine Boy" under the name Cab Quay. This was the start of the career as a jazz singer that would bring him in contact with jazz musicians from all over the world.
In 1937 Cab Kaye played drums and percussion with Doug Swallow and his band in April, the Hal Swain Band in the summer and Alan Green’s band in September in Hastings, England. Until 1940 he sang and drummed with the Ivor Kirchin Band, with Steve Race on piano, in the Paramount Dance Hall (on Tottenham Court Road) where he was one of the only Africans around. When a guest was refused entrance because of skin colour, Cab Kaye refused to perform. The incident led to the regular acceptance of people of colour and the Paramount Dance Hall grew into a sort of “Harlem of London”.[2] After a short period with Britain’s first black swing bandleader, Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and "His Rhythm Swingers", he played in several radio broadcasts. Shortly thereafter, Cab Kaye joined the British Merchant Navy, which was required to sail and provided support services to the allies during World War II. On March 8, 1941, three days after Cab Kaye enlisted, Ken Johnson and saxophonist David Williams were killed when a bomb fell on the London nightclub Café de Paris in London's West End, where they were performing. Around this time Cab Kaye’s mother, Doris Balderson, was also killed when her house in Portsmouth (England) was the only house on her street to get hit by a bomb.
While on leave from the Merchant Navy, Cab Kaye sang with Don Mario Barretto in London. In 1942, his ship was hit by a torpedo in the Pacific Ocean. Cab Kaye was saved, but his convoy continued to be attacked by enemy ships. During the following three nights, two other ships were sunk. These experiences stayed with Cab his entire life and explain his constant fear of fireworks. But the adventure was not over. En route to an Army hospital in New York he was badly hurt as his plane crashed just before landing. While recuperating in New York, he went to concerts and played in clubs in Harlem and Greenwich Village with the great trumpet player Roy Eldridge, trombonist Sandy Williams, Slam Stewart, Pete Brown, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Willie "The Lion" Smith. The story was told in a two-page article in Melody Maker (December, 1942) titled “TORPEDOED... SHIPWRECKED... INJURED... BUT HE MET ALL THE SWING STARS!”.[3] After his return to London, Cab Kaye sang in February and April 1943 with clarinettist Harry Parry then with the “Princes of rhythm”,[4] and formed a band that played in 1943 and 1944 in the Orchard Club on Wigmore Street that included a 16-year old Ronald Schatt (Ronnie Scott) on sax and Ralph Sharon and Dick Katz on piano.
In 1946, Cab Kaye sang for the British troops in Egypt and India with Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson’s "All Colored Band". After that, he performed as a singer and entertainer in Belgium. In 1947, he returned to London to sing in the bands of guitarist Vic Lewis, trombonist and bandleader Ted Heath, the bebop accordionist Tito Burns and the band "Jazz in the Town Hall". In that year, Cab Kaye was voted number 13 by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual Jazz Poll.
From 1948 he performed mainly as orchestra leader of his own bands, such as "The Ministers of Swing", which featured the saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Johnny Dankworth (who later married Cleo Laine) and the bebop guru pianist Denis Rose. For the new wave of London musicians from the West Indies, as well as the English musicians, Cab Kaye was an inspiration as a bandleader. In 1949 he played with Tommy Pollard (piano, accordion, vibes), Cecil Jacob “Flash” Winston (drums, vocals and piano) and Paul Fenhoulet’s Orchestra, a band that always included top jazz musicians. On October 13, 1949 he recorded an album with clarinetist Keith Bird and "The Esquire Six".
In this period he also led Cab Kaye and "his Coloured Orchestra" and co-led "The Cabinettes" with Ronnie Ball featuring "blues singer" Mona Baptiste from Trinidad. Both of these bands played regularly in the Fabulous Feldman Club (100 Oxford Street, London), featuring Cab Kaye on electric guitar. Cab Kaye's band was, after the war in 1948, the first musical ensemble featuring people of colour to play in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. With his "All Coloured Band", featuring Dave Wilkins, Henry Shalofsky (Hank Shaw) and Sam Walker, Cab Kaye then toured in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in 1950 and 1951. In Paris at the end of the 1940s beginning 50's, Cab Kaye met with Tadd Dameron, who was then playing with Miles Davis. Tadd Dameron gave Cab Kaye his first and only piano lesson. In the Club St. Germain Cab Kaye played with guitarist Django Reinhardt who had become more interested in bebop. Also in Paris, Cab reunited with Roy Eldridge who introduced him to Don Byas, probably in Dick Edward’s jazz club Ringside (later the Blue Note) on the Rue Thérèse. The Ringside was frequented by such jazz greats as pianist Art Simmons, Annie Ross (of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross), saxophonist James Moody, Pierre Michelot (bassist, bandleader and composer) and poet/vocalist “Oop-Pop-A-Da” Babs Gonzales. In Jazz News (June 21, 1961) a half-hour jam session is described, based on “Stomping at the Savoy” at the Ringside in the early 50’s. Art Simmons on piano and Cab Kaye drove the crowd wild. In the years following, the early 50’s, Cab Kaye regularly accompanied saxophonist Don Byas on piano.
In 1950 Cab Kaye played in the Netherlands. "Cab Kaye's combo comes to Rotterdam", Cab Kaye and "seven negro musicians" as the Dutch jazz magazine "Rhythm" reports on February 15, 1950, "brings a program in the style of Louis Jordan, but also South American music and calypso's". Cab Kaye played the entire month of March 1950 in the Rotterdam club "Parkzicht" with jazz trumpeter Dave Wilkins from Barbados, the Jamaican tenor saxophonist and clarinetist George Tyndale, Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Rupert Nurse (bass - the first musician to write big band arrangements for calypso), Cliff Anderson (drums) and Chico Eyo (bongos).
While in the Netherlands, a performance with the "Skymasters" was recorded by the Dutch radio network AVRO in May, 1950 (according to Melody Maker the performance was broadcasted on May 17, 1950). In the same period a performance featuring Cab Kaye was broadcasted in the television programme "music all in" by the Dutch television and radio organization TROS (see: Jazz & improvised music in the Netherlands, 1978). In 1951 Cab Kaye recorded with Astraschall records in Germany with George Tyndale (tenor sax), Dave Wilkins (trumpet), Sam Walker (tenor sax), Cyril Johnson (piano), Owen Stephens (bass) and Aubrey Henry (drums).
Between December, 1950 and May, 1951, Cab Kaye's Latin American Band, booked by Lou van Rees, toured France, Germany and The Netherlands (where Cab Kaye met Charlie Parker, among other notables). In the Netherlands, Cab played in the newly opened "Avifauna" in Alphen aan den Rijn, the world's first bird park. In a turn of fate, Cab first met his later wife Jeannette at Avifauna when she was a little girl. The founder and owner was a hat manufacturer from The Hague, Gerardus van den Brink, an uncle of Jeannette van den Brink. The reprise came 30 years later when Cab and Jeannette married.
In 1951, Cab Kaye played a small role in the movie Sensation in San Remo, directed by Georg Jacoby. Although the New Musical Express on March 20, 1953 announced "Cab Kaye gets Big Break Film", the movie was not a success and soon disappeared from cinemas. But it was not to be Cab’s last time in front of a camera. Further exposure came with his shows in the Montpellier Buttery Club where, according to a flyer, he performed his "Afro-Cuban music" and organised dance contests (cha-cha, mambo and jive). Prizes were presented by jazz stars such as Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott. In 1952 he recorded with the Gerry Moore Trio on March 1 and the Norman Burns Quintet on May 17. From late 1952 to mid-1953 Cab played with drummer Tommy Jones from Liverpool and bassist/guitarist Brylo Ford from Trinidad. In 1953, Brylo Ford and Deacon Jones (drums) played in a trio of Cab’s that was featured in the movie Blood Orange, directed by Terence Fisher.
Meanwhile, Cab Kaye led various multi-ethnic bands, usually consisting of musicians from British, African and West Indian origin. Later that year, he toured Scotland in the revue titled "Memories of Jolson", a musical based on the life of Al Jolson, featuring sixteen-year-old Shirley Bassey. The show received such positive reviews that Cab Kaye decided to increasingly focus on variety shows (Melody Maker, 1953). He founded the theater booking agency Black and White Productions Ltd., to book small theater and film rolls for himself and other musicians.[5] His career as a businessman did not last long and he soon focused again on making music.
A July 5, 1953 flyer from Jephson Gardens Pavilion announces Cab Kaye and his orchestra with a special attraction: "America's Queen of the Ivories”, Mary Lou Williams. In this band he accompanied the jitterbug and tap dancer Josephine (Josie) Woods, Dizzy Reece (trumpet), Pat Burke (tenor sax), Dennis Rose (piano), Denny Coffey (bass) and Dave Smallman (bongo & conga) in 'Cab Kaye's jazz septet' amongst others at the London Palladium in 1953. Several different types of appearances followed, including performances with "Old Black Magic" singer Billy Daniels and pianist Benny Payne (New Wimbledon Theatre, July 26, 1953).
In the Netherlands, Kaye performed in the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. In the same year (1953), Melody Maker reported that a very hot sauce with a secret recipe, "Cab's secret”, was sold in a number of shops on Archer Street (East Finchley) in London. Although popular among Cab’s friends for many years, the sauce never became a commercial success. At the end of 1953, Cab formed a cabaret act with Josie Woods "the Two Brown Birds of Rhythm". Again in Paris’s "Ring Side" club, this time announced as "Kab Kay”, he accompanied Eartha Kitt on piano. In April, 1954 he played the role of “Kenneth - the coloured singer” in the film The Man Who Loved Redheads, written by Terence Rattigan, directed by Harold French and produced by British Lion. The film is about an innocent boy who meets a red-haired girl (Moira Shearer), and can’t forget her.[6] Cab Kaye received a salary of £35 per day.
During one of his tours in England (September 20, 1954), he sang with a band led by pianist Ken Moule and including Dave Usden (trumpet), Keith Barr, Roy Sidwell (tenor saxophone), Don Cooper (bass), Arthur Watts (bass) and Lennie Breslaw (drums). Again contracted by impresario Lou van Rees, he toured the Netherlands in 1955-1956 and performed in the Flying Dutchman club in Scheveningen. Lou van Rees had the idea to form a big band with 12 band leaders who were not often heard on the Dutch radio, including Wil Hensbergen (Wil Hensbergen Orchestra), Max Woiski Sr. (La Cubana Orchestra), vibraphonist Eddy Sanchez (Swiss Air Trio), Johnny Kraaykamp (leader of the One Man Band), Wessel Ilcken and Cab Kaye. Also in 1956 "showman" Cab Kaye played in Amsterdam’s Sheherazade jazz club with his 'All Star Quintet', consisting out of Rob Pronk (piano), Toon van Vliet (tenor sax), Dub Dubois (bass) and drummer Wally Bishop. The club, nicknamed 'Zade' by friends, was located until 1962 in the Wagenstraat in Amsterdam and was a popular meeting place for jazz musicians. Later in 1956 Cab Kaye toured Germany and played in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Köln, followed in 1957 by touring England with the Eric Delaney Band Show with Marion Williams.[7]
On August 31, 1957 Cab Kaye performed in 'Cab's Quintet' in the British television program Six-Five Special (Season 1, episode 29) with Laurence “Laurie” Deniz (1st guitar) and his brother Joe Deniz (2nd guitar), Pete Blannin (bass) and Harry South (piano). Around this time Cab Kaye also performed in Oh Boy!, the first British teenage all-music show. Oh Boy an ABC/ITV show produced by Jack Good who had earlier produced Six-Five Special and knew Cab Kaye from that show. In the same year, 1957, Cab Kaye was voted eleventh in Melody Maker’s Jazz Music Magazine Poll. In 1959 he joined the ensemble of Humphrey Lyttelton[8] in London which led to the recording of the album Humph Meets Cab (March 1960) with his characteristic witty vocals on pieces such as "Let Love Lie Sleeping".
Cab Kaye's popularity kept on growing. The Manchester Evening News announced on 25 August 1960 for the next day BBC TV Jazz Session featuring the Dill Quintet, the Bob Wallis Storyville Jazzmen and singer Cab Kaye.[9] In the same year Cab Kaye came ninth place in Melody Maker’s Jazz Poll.[10] First place that year went to the English jazz and blues singer George Melly.
On March 6, 1957 the Gold Coast became under the name of Ghana the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence in 1957. Three years later, on March 6, 1960, Kwame Nkrumah became president of the republic. For Cab Kaye the independence of Ghana was an important political symbol. Two family members in high positions at the Ghanaian government, Tawiah Adamafio and CT Nylander, had brought Cab Kaye into contact with Ghanaian politics. After the independence of Ghana during the reign of Kwame Nkrumah, Cab Kaye was appointed to the Government Entertainments Officer and from 1961 Cab Kaye worked for the Ghana High commissioner’s headquarters in London as protocol officer.[11] In this function he played a role in getting a Ghanaian passport for Miriam Makeba whose South African passport had been revoked under the country's apartheid regime.
Probably partly influenced by both racist experiences and the euphoria on the independency of Ghana he disbanded with the anglicized version of his name (Cab Kaye) and called himself Kwamlah Quaye (some newspapers forgot the "h" in Kwamlah).
While in the Ghanaian Embassy for daytime work, he played at night in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. A farewell special on Cab Kaye entitled Sswinging Diplomat was broadcasted by the BBC.[12] In Ronnie Scott's club a farewell party was organized for Cab Kaye under the slogan "He's goin 'home' with the best jazz in town".
Before leaving for Ghana Cab Kaye recorded the song he wrote together with William "Bill" Davis "Everything Is Go" with his 'Kwamlah Quaye Sextetto Africana'. With this band he made his first recordings in which he played guitar. This group consisted of guitarist Laurence "Laurie" Deniz (born in Cardiff in 1924, his father came from Cape Verde), bass: Chris O'Brien, bongos: Frank Holder, both of which came from British Guiana (now Guyana) to serve in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Chris Ajilo at claves. "Everything is Go" was a tribute to the American astronaut John Glenn with its "get set, blast off, this man is heading for space" being a cheerful calypso piece, strangely interwoven with the melancholy of the astro nautical euphoria of the sixties. In 1962 (February 17) Cab Kaye gained fourth place in the Melody Maker poll of leading jazz musicians. The number was played at the opening of the exhibition of the Space Shuttle in Accra on May 29, 1962 by Joe Mensah.
Cab Kaye left London with big plans to work for the Ghana Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). Ghana should become the African Riviera and cultural center of modern Africa.[13] Once arrived in Accra, he formed a duo with singer Mary Hyde with whom he regularly performed in the Star and other hotels in Accra .
In November 1961 Cab Kaye performed during a visit by Queen Elizabeth.[14] In his function as "Entertainment Manager" for the "Ghana Hotels ltd." Cab Kaye was less successful. Although the concerts he organized were well visited, Cab Kaye could not get the dance competitions on Sunday and Monday of the ground. Apparently this was very important in Accra, Ghana as it was reported in the Ghana Times (April 26, 1962) which caused Cab Kaye to finish his contract shortly afterwards. In 1963 back in the "Star Hotel" Cab Kaye joined with the drummer Guy Warren (later known as "Kofi Ghanaba" - son of Ghana) and the folk singer and activist Pete Seeger who, on a world tour, was very popular in Ghana as he was known for his statements about the equality of the black American population. Cab Kaye then played in Accra (including the, at that time, very famous "Tip-Toe gardens") and Lagos alternating with performances in New York (e.g. in the "Village door" in Long Island). On August 7, 1964 he played in a charity program O'Pataki (Pataki in the Yoruba language can be translated as "important") to support the African culture with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his quintet.
In the early sixties the Ghanaian “Ramblers Dance Band” covered Cab Kaye's highlife song entitled "Beautiful Ghana" under the new title "Work and Happiness". This song, released with "Decca Recordings West Africa", was frequently played during Kwame Nkrumah's regime as part of the political "Work and Happiness" program. As usual after a military coup (Kwame Nkrumah was deposed in 1966) the supporters of the previous regime got into trouble. This also happened to Cab Kaye, who had to explain his political views behind the "Work and Happiness" song (“Evening News", October 12, 1966). Fortunately his sister Norma was married in Nigeria with Dr. J.T. Nelson-Cole and offered him a new home base in Lagos. As this was the end of his political career the Pan-Africanism of Kwame Nkrumah, calling for a politically united Africa, would remain one of the few political ideas which Cab Kaye supported the rest of his life.
Yet he never disengaged entirely from political life. From 1965 Cab Kaye played alternately in New York, Europe and Africa. He made good use of his cultural background from Africa and Europe. In the "New York Amsterdam News"(January 18, 1965) he had a letter printed with the lines: “I am proud, I am African "..." I am proud, I am black". This text, signed by Nii Lante Quaye (657 Crotona Park, Bronx) was consistent with the ideas of the emerging "Black Power" movement.
While Cab Kaye was announced in New York under the name "Nii Lante Quaye" as a special act (for example in a flyer announcing Cab Kaye as a guest artist in the show of Ed Nixon Jr. better known as "Nick La Tour" (Baritone) in St. Stephan’s Methodist Church, Broadway on (May 22, 1966).The show master Cab Kaye was announced in Ghanaian flyers of this time as "MC” (Master of Ceremony) Cab Kaye. He performed regularly at the Ghanaian and Nigerian radio and television. On November 16, 1966 in "It's time for show biz" with the Spree City Stompers from Berlin, on January 6, 1967 he performs with “the Paramount Eight Dance Band" in the Ghanaian television on "Bandstand" and on July 30, 1967 as "MC" on the international pop festival in Accra. In May 1968 he acted with his nephews, the "Nelson Cole brothers", in Lagos and then toured through Nigeria. The Nelson Cole brothers were his sister Norma's sons who formed the Soul Assembly with other artists. In 1996 Cab Kaye played again in Lagos (Federal Palace Hotel) in a program including Fela Kuti and highlife bandleader Bobby Benson.
Upon his return to England in 1970 he discovered that his daughter Terri Quaye (also known as Theresa Naa-Koshie) and his eldest son, Caleb Quaye and his band Hookfoot, both having their own musical careers, where more famous in London than Cab Kaye himself. Back in London he began his second London career in Mike Leroy's "Chez Club Cleo" (Knightsbridge) accompanied by Clive Cooper (bass) and Cecil 'Flash' Winston (drums). He soon became a much requested star in the London jazz circuit. Cab Kaye's daughter Terri, who started singing with her father and his bebop jazz band as a young girl, accompanied him at some events. Around 1973 he was accompanied by Mike Greaves (Micky Greeve - drums, percussion), Phil Bates (bass) and Ray Dempsey (guitar). The following year he was one of the attractions at the "Black Arts Festival 1974" organized by the Commonwealth Institute in London. Besides performing at various events he made regular appearances at the BBC Club, an exclusive club for employees of the BBC together with Phil Bates and Tony Crombie (composer of “So Near, So Far" recorded by Miles Davis).
In the late seventies Cab Kaye moved to Amsterdam and became a member of Buma/Stemra (the Dutch copyright organization that oversees distribution of royalties among publishers, musicians, and writers) and the Dutch Association of Professional Improvising Musicians (BIM). In Amsterdam he performed with jazz musicians like Babs Gonzales, funk jazz flutist Wally Shorts, Bert Koppelaar (trombonist), Hard Bop and Post Bop jazz bassist Wilbur Little and conductor Boy Edgar (e.g. in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw). In the early years in Amsterdam he rented an apartment from the jazz saxophonist Rosa King and became a local celebrity in the Amsterdam jazz scene. On October 1, 1979, he opened his own jazz club in the centre of Amsterdam,"Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar" at Beulingstraat 9, with his Dutch wife Jeannette. When not touring Poland, Portugal and Iceland he performed five nights a week in his own Piano Bar, a meeting place for jazz greats. Frequent visitors included Rosa King, trombonist Slide Hampton, television doctor and saxophonist Aart Gisolf, guitarist Dirk-Jan "Bubblin” Toorop,[15] pianist David Mayer, singer Gerrie van der Klei, Max Roach, Oscar Peterson, Pia Beck and many others. In this period, Cab performed in many concerts in the Netherlands, including several with Max "Teawhistle" Teeuwisse in Den Oever and four times at the North Sea Jazz Festival. The first North Sea Jazz Festival performance was with his Cab Kaye Quartet on July 16, 1978; the second was Friday, July 10, 1981 with Akwaba Cab Kaye and his Afro Jazz; the third was in July, 1982, accompanied by Aart Gisolf and Nippy Noya and the last time as a soloist on Sunday, July 10, 1983.
In the second half of the eighties Cab was regularly heard in the Victoria Hotel Amsterdam. On October 10, 1987 he performed in the "Night of Hilversum”, a charity against polio organized by the Rotary Club, WHO and UNICEF. On May 21, 1988 Cab Kaye's Jazz Piano Bar closed and since that time Cab Kaye was heard in public much less often than before. The final significant performance of Cab Kaye’s was on Sunday, September 8, 1996 at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam.[16] Many musicians and jazz lovers, including Herman Openneer, Pim Grass, the Dutch jazz drummer John Engels and Rosa King, organized a very busy birthday party for the then 75-year old pianist. He was unable to sing due to his mouth floor cancer, but enthusiastically played piano and jammed with many musicians. Subsequently, he performed only sporadically in smaller venues and privately in Amsterdam’s Dapperbuurt. The last time Cab Kaye played piano (including "Jeannette You are my Love") was on March 12, 2000, at home, along with Rosa King.
Although born in London, Cab Kaye considered himself African. He married three times, first in 1939 to Theresa Austin, a jazz singer and daughter of a sailor from Barbados. Cab and Theresa often performed together. She and Cab had two daughters, Terri Quaye (born 8 November 1940, Bodmin), Tanya Quaye and a son, Caleb Quaye (born 1948 in London). Cab met his second wife, a Nigerian named Evelyn, in the sixties in Ghana. Together, they moved back to England. After a brief affair in 1973 with Sharon McGowan, a jazz singer, he had a son, Finley Quaye (born 25 March 1974, Edinburgh). Cab Kaye met his son Finley as an adult in 1997 at a concert of Finley's in the rock music venue and cultural center Paradiso Amsterdam. Three generations: grandfather Caleb Jonas Quaye (Ernest Mope Desmond), Kwamlah Quaye (Cab Kaye) and youngest son Finley Quaye have all played, at different times, at Glasgow's Barrowlands, Wolverhampton's Wulfrun Hall and London's Cafe d'Paris. His third wife, Jeannette, was Dutch. After marrying, he decided to settle in the Netherlands and became a Dutch citizen.
In the nineties, Cab Kaye was diagnosed with mouth floor cancer. The man who had entertained countless people throughout his life with his singing thus lost the ability to speak. Until his death at age 78 (March 13, 2000) in the Dapperbuurt, Cab Kaye lived in Amsterdam where he was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the North Sea and in Accra (Ghana).
Cab Kaye's motto was "Truth is stranger than f(r)iction, (excuse my diction, I walk with a lisp)."