The Five Spot Café
*The Five Spot Café opened on this date in 1956. The Five Spot Café was a jazz club in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City, between the East and West Village.
Its friendly, non-commercial, low-key atmosphere, affordable drinks and food, cutting-edge bebop, and progressive jazz attracted many avant-garde artists and writers. In 1937, Salvatore Termini purchased what was then known as the Bowery Café; in 1946, his sons, Joe and Ignatze, returned from the war and helped run the bar. In 1951, the sons purchased the business from their father and renamed it the No. 5 Bar. In late 1955, the city revitalization of the Bowery deteriorated the area into a skid row.
Many artists were drawn to the area during this time due to the cheaper rents compared to Greenwich Village. Pianist Don Shoemaker had a studio above the No. 5 Bar, where he hosted jam sessions and eventually told Joe that if the bar purchased a piano, he and his band would play. Joe bought a used upright piano, received a cabaret license on August 30, 1956, and opened under the name the Five Spot Café a week later. Many musicians lived nearby and frequented the sessions. Some, like Lester Young, hung out, while others, such as Cannonball Adderley, sat in.
Artists, writers, and poets Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ted Joans, and Gregory Corso began to frequent the club. Even Paul Newman came to understand the "scene better." The first official engagement at the Five Spot was with Cecil Taylor. Later, Steve Lacy (then known as Steve Lackritz) was added to the band. The booking lasted from November 29, 1956, to January 3, 1957. Not long afterward, Charles "Big Charlie" Turyn, a Holocaust survivor, began bartending and waiting tables at the club and became another fixture, a walking repository of information about the era's music and the club. It was also a venue of historic significance, a mecca for local and out-of-state musicians who packed the small venue to listen to many of the era's most creative composers and performers.
In July 1957, Thelonious Monk's Quartet began a six-month residency at the club. The first group featured John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Monk had another extended booking at the club a year later, with Coltrane replaced by Johnny Griffin, and included Roy Haynes. That group was recorded and issued on the albums Thelonious in Action and Misterioso (both 1958). In November 1959, the Ornette Coleman Quartet from Los Angeles made its New York debut at the Five Spot. The Quartet featured Coleman on alto saxophone, Don Cherry on cornet, Charlie Haden on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The engagement was originally scheduled to last two weeks, but due to its success, it was extended to ten weeks, ending in late January 1960. Musicians such as Leonard Bernstein were among the attendees on the opening night.
On April 5, 1960, the Quartet returned to the Five Spot for a second engagement, which lasted four months, ending in late October 1960. The original Café was demolished in 1962 to make way for senior housing, and it moved to 2 St. Marks Place until closing in 1967. That location discontinued live music in 1967, and the brothers let their cabaret license lapse as live jazz dipped in popularity. It resumed jazz performances in 1974, having briefly changed its name to the Two Saints. Still, it closed in January 1976, having hosted final performances in 1975, because it could not regain a cabaret license.
