In the 1930s, Midtown Manhattan clubs were packed with the bourgeoisie, tuxes and evening gowns, tables and banquettes of rich white people drinking champagne, often entertained by Black performers borrowed from the Harlem music scene.
It was putting on the ritz, it was dancing cheek to cheek. ‘Same-colored’ cheeks.
It was the embodiment of the phrase ‘café society‘, coined by the one of the scene’s wittier celebrities Claire Booth Luce, a darling toast of Broadway.
But what would become one of the New York music world’s most fertile spots for musical innovation was far, far downtown from the ‘real’ nightlife — at 1 Sheridan Square in the West Village.
Café Society was a New York City nightclub open from 1938 to 1948 on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. It was managed by New Jersey shoe salesman Barney Josephson. Over the course of its ten-year run — and that of a second location, placed at 58th and Park — Josephson and his partners would host dozens of soon-to-be jazz stars, in many cases paving the way to their success. Josephson created the club to showcase African American talent and to be an American version of the political cabarets he had seen in Europe. As well as running the first racially integrated night club in the United States, Josephson chose the name to mock the rich patrons of more upscale nightclubs. Josephson trademarked the name Café Society, and he also advertised the club as “The Wrong Place for the Right People”.
The club prided itself on treating black and white customers equally, unlike many venues, such as the Cotton Club, which featured black performers but barred black customers except for prominent black people in the entertainment industry. The club featured many of the greatest black musicians of the day, often imposing a strongly political bent. Billie Holiday first sang “Strange Fruit” there; at Josephson’s insistence, she closed her set with this song, leaving the stage without taking any encores, so that the audience would be left to think about the meaning of the song. Lena Horne was persuaded to stop singing “When it’s Sleepy Time Down South”, Pearl Bailey was fired for being “too much of an Uncle Tom”, and Carol Channing was fired for an impersonation of Ethel Waters.
Relying on the keen musical judgment of John Hammond, the club’s “unofficial music director”, Josephson helped launch the careers of Ruth Brown, Lena Horne, Hazel Scott, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, Big Joe Turner, and Sarah Vaughan.
Josephson’s club was the scene of numerous political events and fundraisers, often for left-wing causes, both during and after World War II. In 1947, Josephson’s brother Leon Josephson was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which led to hostile comments from columnists Westbrook Pegler and Walter Winchell. The FBI even staked out the club, photographing patrons, and Hoover soon ‘opened a file’ on Barney himself. Both locations of Café Society were closed by 1950.
But Josephson managed to pick himself up and soon opened another influential downtown jazz club, the Cookery, which stayed open into the 1980s.
Music: From 1940, Joe Sullivan and His Cafe Society Orchestra with “Solitude.”
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