Cafe Music

Cafe music, also known as supper club singing, originated with the cabaret tradition in France in the late 19th century. Audiences gathered in small clubs to hear amateur performers, directed by a Master of Ceremonies, perform humorous songs that skewered contemporary society. The new form of entertainment soon emigrated to Germany; Berlin was famous for its vice-filled, vibrant cafe scene in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

After Prohibition ended in 1933, supper clubs began to appear in Beverly Hills, Chicago, New York, Miami, and other American cities. Like the roadhouses and speakeasies of the Prohibition era, supper clubs offered food, drinks, music and dancing, but in an elevated setting. They were Art Deco palaces that promised the finest in service, food, and entertainment.

In the United States, Cafe Music centered around the songs of Cole Porter, Ivor Novello, Rogers and Hart, George Gerswhin, and Cy Coleman, jazz composers who frequently wrote for Broadway musicals and motion pictures.

Jazz critic Whitney Balliett described Cafe music as “the most intimate and delicate form of live entertainment extant. It is the art of singing (and often accompanying oneself on the piano) witty or ironic or sad but never sentimental songs in a small room to a small group of people, and in such a way that the performer and his audience, generally only a few feet away, become almost one. Every member of the audience comes to believe that a song is being sung to him, and the performer, who can look directly into his listeners’ eyes, feels that he is singing only to the listener he happens to look at. It is singing stripped to its essentials—words lifted and carried by the curves of melody.’

African-American singer and pianist Bobby Short was one of the genre’s most recognizable stars. Throughout his career, he made a point of playing the songs of black composers, such as Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Bobby Strayhorn. Short began working as a musician at nine years old in Danville, Illinois in 1933. By the time he was 12, he had graduated to New York night clubs. After taking his act on the road, he settled into a 36-year residency at the Cafe Carlyle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he would often improvise his way through sets. As a musician, Short was so accessible that he was known to accept fans’ invitations to play weddings. He has appeared in several films, including Hannah and Her Sisters.

Actor Dooley Wilson portrayed cabaret singer and piano player Sam in the 1942 classic film Casablanca. The famous line “Play it again, Sam” comes from this movie, when Humphrey Bogart requests another sentimental round of “As Time Goes By.” In actuality, Bogart never said the line; it’s a common misquote.

Other important American cabaret singers include Nina Simone, Liza Minelli and Steve Ross. Historic venues include New York’s Feinstein’s/54 Below (located in the basement of the disco venue Studio 54) and Duplex Cabaret Theatre, and The Gardenia Supper Club in Los Angeles. In NYC’s West Village, the cafe music tradition continues on at Cafe Carlyle.