History
In 1937, Salvatore Termini (b. 1884) purchased what was then known as the Bowery Café, a working-class bar located under the Third Avenue El. In 1946, two of Termini's sons, Joe and Ignatze (Iggy) 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 in 1955 the Third Avenue El was demolished and the city embarked on a revitalization of the Bowery. During this time many artists were drawn to the area due to the cheaper rent prices compared to Greenwich Village. Pianist Don Shoemaker was among the influx of artists who moved re-located to the Bowery. Occupying a studio at 1 Cooper Square above the No. 5 Bar, Shoemaker hosted jam sessions during which he would purchase beer from the Terminis. Shoemaker eventually told Joe that if the bar would purchase a piano, he and his band would play. Joe bought a used upright piano, received a cabaret licence on 30 August 1956, and opened a week later under the name the Five Spot Café. Artists such as painters Herman Cherry, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Alfred Leslie, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Jack Tworkov, Mike Goldberg, Roy Newell, Howard Kanovitz and writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ted Joans, and Gregory Corso began frequenting the club.
The first official engagement at the 5 Spot was Cecil Taylor, whose band featured Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums. Later, Steve Lacy (then still Steve Lackritz) was added to the band. Originally, Taylor's band was initially hired to accompany Dick Whitmore, but Whitmore quit after three nights, giving the job to Taylor. The gig lasted from 29 November 1956 to 3 January 1957.
On 4 July 1957, Thelonious Monk's quartet featuring John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums began a six month stay at the club. Ware was later replaced by Ahmed Abdul-Malik and Wilson by Roy Haynes. This was Monk's first extended engagement.
Read more about this topic: Five Spot
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)