Cafe Society
The wrong place for the Right people
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Set against the drama of the Great Depression, the conflict of American race relations, and the inquisitions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Cafe Society tells the personal history of Barney Josephson, proprietor of the legendary interracial New York City night clubs Cafe Society Downtown and Cafe Society Uptown and their successor, The Cookery. Famously known as “the wrong place for the Right people,” Cafe Society featured the cream of jazz and blues performers--among whom were Billie Holiday, boogie-woogie pianists, Big Joe Turner, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Big Sid Catlett, and Mary Lou Williams--as well as comedy stars Imogene Coca, Zero Mostel, and Jack Gilford, and also gospel and folk singers. A trailblazer in many ways, Josephson welcomed black and white artists alike to perform for mixed audiences in a venue whose walls were festooned with artistic and satiric murals lampooning what was then called “high society.”
Featuring scores of photographs that illustrate the vibrant cast of characters in Josephson’s life, this exceptional book speaks richly about Cafe Society’s revolutionary innovations and creativity, inspired by the vision of one remarkable man.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This inspirational, exciting, atmospheric read takes readers to New York's West Village in the late 1930s, and the white-owned establishment that championed jazz, discovered Billie Holiday and welcomed its mixed-race crowd in a time when such mingling was unheard of. Former New Jersey shoe salesman Josephson (1902-88), frustrated with frivolous American clubs and their racial discrimination, was inspired by European political cabarets to open Club Society in the West village in 1938. A jazz club in which most of the performers, and much of the audience, was black, Josephson's stories from the pioneering music spot are incredible, including Leonard Bernstein performing Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock solo on piano at five in the morning; the virtually unknown Billie Holiday performing, for the first time, Lewis Allen's Strange Fruit; and a well-known policy of kicking out anyone who "objected to sitting next to Negroes." Other Society notables include Lena Horne, Zero Mostel, Sarah Vaughn, and Hazel Scott, and the club's success led to a second location on Park Avenue (which quickly proved wrong predictions that the uptown crowd would never integrate).
