Café Society

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The Café Society (also Café Society Downtown called) was a jazz club in New York City , in December 1938 in Greenwich Village was opened. A second establishment, Café Society Uptown, opened two years later, in October 1940, on East 58th Street. By the time they closed, the two clubs brought out a large number of artists who achieved fame there through their debut or engagement. The Café Society is best known as one of the venues for jazz singer Billie Holiday .

The history of the Café Society

The founder of the Café Society, Barney Josephson (1902–1988), was born the son of Latvian immigrants in Trenton, New Jersey . Before arriving in New York in 1937, he had worked as a shoe seller in his hometown and in Atlantic City . Josephson was a jazz lover and frequent visitor to New York's nightclub scene. He rejected the racial segregation that prevailed in most clubs (and even in the Cotton Club in Harlem , a black residential area).

He borrowed $ 6,000 from friends of his brother Leon (a lawyer) and on December 18, 1938, he opened the Café Society in the basement of Sheridan Square No. 2 (now No. 1) in Greenwich Village. It was the first club in a white neighborhood where both the artists and the audience were multiracial.

The club was decorated with wall paintings by painters from Greenwich Village ( Adolf Dehn , William Gropper , Sam Berman , Abe Birnbaum , Syd Hoff , John Groth , Ad Reinhardt and Anton Refregier ). Josephson brought on John Hammond , one of the greatest promoters of swing, as an advisor .

The name of the club was a mocking allusion to certain snobbish social circles for which the term "café society" was used in the press at the time. The effect was by the slogan "The wrong place for the Right people" ( The wrong place for the right people reinforced). The ambiguity that resulted from the capitalization of the R was obviously directed against the conservative establishment.

As the business of the Greenwich Village club was unsatisfactory, Josephson moved to the better off area on 58th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. He spread the rumor that he was moving because his first club was doing so well, which is why he wanted to open a second. Eventually, business boomed in both clubs. The second branch, Café Society Uptown , opened on October 8, 1940.

Left to right: Gene Sedric , Cliff Jackson, Olivette Miller and Josh White at Cafe Society (Downtown). Photo: William P. Gottlieb (1947)

Artists from the most varied of musical styles sang in the two clubs: jazz ; Blues , Rhythm and Blues , Gospel , Folk , like Billie Holiday , Lena Horne , Sarah Vaughan , Nellie Lutcher , Rose Murphy , Rosetta Tharpe , Hazel Scott , Mildred Bailey , Kay Starr , Susan Reed and Lucienne Boyer , the singers Josh White , Big Joe Turner , Leadbelly , Sonny Terry , Burl Ives and the Golden Gate Quartet .
It played u. a. Jazz musicians like Mary Lou Williams , Teddy Wilson , Art Tatum , Coleman Hawkins , Lester Young and his brother Lee , Henry Red Allen , Joe Sullivan and Edmond Hall , also James P. Johnson , Ellis Larkins , Kansas Fields , Cliff Jackson , Bill Coleman , Joe Thomas , John Kirby , Sidney Catlett . From 1943 Eddie Heywood played with his popular sextet in the club. Fletcher Henderson had his last appearance here, Django Reinhardt his only nightclub appearance in America.
Boogie Woogie pianists like Albert Ammons , Meade Lux Lewis , Pete Johnson performed, as well as the blues musician Big Bill Broonzy , but also gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds (also called The Jericho Quintet , accompanied by Lester Young).
Comedians like Jack Gilford or Zero Mostel accompanied the program as master of the ceremony . Performances were made by Imogene Coca , Jimmy Savo and Carol Channing ; it danced and a. Pearl Primus , the Force Sisters.

The club was a meeting place for many left-wing political activists in the 1940s. After Josephson's brother Leon, who was a member of the Communist Party, was cited before the Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947 , the number of visitors fell due to a negative press campaign. Josephson had to close the Society Uptown café at the end of 1947, and Downtown followed in 1950.

Billie Holiday at Café Society

For the singer, the engagement in the Café Society should be a great success. Barney Josephson reports:

“Billie was my first singer when I opened Café Society in the winter of '38. She starred in my show program, working with emcee and comedian Jack Gilford, who was new to show business. We had a band led by trumpeter Frankie Newton , who died five or six years later as a young man. With him played the pianist Billy Kyle , who also accompanied Billie (Holiday), Big Joe Turner and Boogie Woogie pianists. (John) Hammond helped us put it together. Billie wasn't a newcomer anymore, she was already in business, but it wasn't until Cafe Society that things really started for her. "

The hallmark of Billie Holiday's appearances was her charge against lynching, the song Strange Fruit , which she performed regularly at the end of her performance at Josephson's request, leaving the audience in silent reflection.

literature

  • Donald Clarke: Billie Holiday - Wishing on the Moon . Piper, Munich 1995. ISBN 3-492-03756-9 .
  • Terry Trilling-Josephson, Dan Morgenstern: Cafe Society: The wrong place for the right people . University of Illinois Press, 2009. ISBN 0-252-03413-9
  • Barney Josephson, Owner of Cafe Society Jazz Club, Is Dead at 86 . In: The New York Times , September 30, 1988; obituary

Web links

Commons : Café Society  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cafe Society: The wrong place for the right people, "The Clubs That Broke Barriers" . In: The New York Times , August 14, 2009; New book presentation
  2. ↑ Information from Whitney Balliett, who interviewed Barney Josephson, quoted in Adapted from Clarke: Billie Holiday , p. 191
  3. ↑ Information from Barney Josephson, quoted in Adapted from Clarke: Billie Holiday , p. 192