One man’s vision, instinct and style changed the face of jazz and race relations in New York. Barney Josephson and all his siblings were raised without prejudice and with highly developed senses of justice and fairness. It showed throughout their lives, and in none more than Barney. A shoe salesman from Trenton, he went into the nightclub business in the depths of the Depression, when it was utterly dominated by organized crime. Worse, he employed black performers, encouraged black customers and would not tolerate any prejudice by his patrons. Worse still, he used his own instinct to hire and develop unknown talent instead of booking headliners. He even had artist friends paint murals all over his establishments, instead of fake palm exotic decors. This recipe for disaster led to a golden age that gave rise to countless household names (Billy Holiday, Art Tatum, Joe Turner, Lena Horne, Jack Gilford, Zero Mostel…) and made careers not just for them but for cooks, waiters and waitresses who never forgot. This is a wonderful, classic New York story, as told by the man who made it all happen.

Josephson not only picked the talent, but often managed the performers, who were babes in the woods. He took not a cent of the ten percent he was entitled to. Ever. He nursed careers, bought performers clothes, and allowed them to blossom in the shelter of his two clubs: Café Society Downtown (Greenwich Village) and Uptown (Midtown East). He paid well and managed their savings if they wanted. He did it all out of love. He gave many their big break, and took such great satisfaction from living that life that it was all he ever wanted. He was miserable without it, and despite the many setbacks, was planning to open another club in his late 80s, when he died.

He breaks his story into short chapters that follow the discovery and development of various performers, interspersed with less happy chapters about his personal life. The anti-communist era is particularly heartbreaking, as he was blackballed out of the business, along with numerous friends and performers. Some of them turned on him to save their own careers. It was a shameful era, and Café Society lets it unfold in a very personal way. On the other hand, John Hammond glommed onto Josephson and the clubs from the outset, and provided an endless stream of new talent for them, without remuneration. They were likeminded and identically driven. The Alberta Hunter story is particularly gratifying. She came back to perform at the end of her life, having not sung in 20 years. She performed for a new audience nightly until her death, thanking Josephson for making her old age the best part of her life.

From a racial standpoint, Josephson was a guardian angel. His attitude went so contrary to the segregationist attitude of the time, it is astonishing his clubs weren’t firebombed. He simply insisted everyone was equal and had to be treated with equal respect. Even the cramped Downtown club, with its one communal dressing room, played its part. Imogene Coca remembers when black musicians were cursing in the dressing room: “One night we were dishing some white people and they suddenly looked at me and started to laugh. Everybody had forgotten I was white, including me.”

There are three hundred and some pages of these stories. There are far too many great things to say about Cafe Society than I can write here. It is endlessly rewarding and most worthy of documenting.

David Wineberg ( )