Cab Calloway was an innovator. His imprint is evident in our current entertainment in unparalleled ways. From dance to singing to big bands to stage and screen, he was always coming from his past and creating a different future. Cab’s mother was a teacher. His wife, Zulme “Nuffie” MacNeal came from a long line of teachers and founders of educational institutions. The idea of creating the torches of learning and passing them along were intrinsic to Cab’s professional life and to his personal legacy. Mentoring and advocating for such future stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Leontyne Price and the influence of Nuffie’s family on primary education were fundamental in Cab’s legacy of supporting education and in supporting innovation in education.

The Cab Calloway Foundation has been involved in education and innovation in education for decades. In 1994, the Cab Calloway School of the Arts in Wilmington, Delaware was named after him. The support for start up programs like Strings and Piano majors and for the SMArt Summer: Cab Calloway Summer School of the Arts which enables 20% of the 700 some annual spots that are filled to be for kids who could not afford the opportunity and who are sometimes excluded, de facto, from the “auditions” for the public magnet school because they are not aware or prepared. The Foundation also reaches out to increase diversity and awareness to a music program in Havana, Cuba as well as starting to find places in New Mexico for the underserved. The big goal is create a change in the education paradigm that causes the arts and sciences to be fostered on an equal footing. Arts + Academics = Excellence.