Cafe Society: The wrong place for the Right People (Music in American Life)
In 1938, months before the beginning of World War II, Josephson, a New Jersey shoe salesman who loved jazz, opened Café Society. Unlike at the famed Cotton Club, the clientele and performers—many just getting started in their careers—were a mixture of races and classes. Among the entertainers who appeared at the Café Society, at both the uptown and downtown venues, were Billie Holiday (introducing the song “Strange Fruit”), bluesman Big Joe Turner, Lena Horne, Hazel Scott, Paul Robeson, and Sarah Vaughan. Comedians Zero Mostel, Imogene Coca, and Jack Gilford also performed at the clubs. Josephson’s wife draws on taped interviews with her husband before his death, interspersed with interviews with some of the artists who performed at the cabaret. Josephson was a great raconteur with a love for music, artistic people, and progressive politics. Photographs of the performers, as well as photos of the colorful and cartoonish murals that graced the walls, add to the evocation of a freewheeling ambience in a Depression-era cabaret that promoted itself as the “Wrong place for the Right people.” --Vanessa Bush