Everything about Caf Society totally explained
Café Society was a
New York City nightclub opened in
1938 in
Greenwich Village by
Barney Josephson to showcase
African American talent and to be an American version of the political
cabarets he'd seen in Europe before the war. Josephson also intended the club to defy the pretensions of the rich; he chose the name to mock
Clare Booth Luce and what she referred to as "café society", the habitués of more upscale nightclubs. Josephson not only trademarked the name, which hadn't been trademarked by the
gossip columnist for the
New York Journal American M, who wrote as the first "Cholly Knickerbocker". but advertised the club as "The Wrong Place for the Right People." Josephson opened a second branch on 58th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenue, in
1940.
The club also prided itself on treating black and white customers equally, unlike many venues, such as the
Cotton Club, that featured black performers but barred black customers. The club featured many of the greatest black musicians of the day, from a wide range of backgrounds, often presented with 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.
Relying on the keen musical judgment of
John Hammond, Josephson helped launch the careers of
Lena Horne and
Hazel Scott and popularized gospel groups such as
the Golden Gate Quartet and
the Dixie Hummingbirds among white audiences. The club was also a regular venue for such artists as the
boogie woogie pianists
Meade Lux Lewis,
Albert Ammons and
Pete Johnson,
blues shouter Big Joe Turner, singer and activist
Paul Robeson, country blues singers
Josh White and
Big Bill Broonzy, and jazz giants
Lester Young,
Ella Fitzgerald,
Art Tatum,
James P. Johnson,
Sarah Vaughan, and
Mary Lou Williams. The club also served as a place for musical interchange and development: the
Dixie Hummingbirds, performing under the name "The Jericho Quintet", sang with
Lester Young's combo, while adopting some of the stage moves that their more popular rivals, the
Golden Gate Quartet, had perfected.
Many of these acts had first been presented at Hammond's
Carnegie Hall concerts,
From Spirituals to Swing, in 1938 and 1939.
The club was the scene of numerous political events and fundraisers, often for left-wing causes, both during and after
World War Two. 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. Business dropped sharply as a result and the club closed the following year.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Caf Society'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://caf___society.totallyexplained.com">Café Society Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
