The Hippest Place on Earth

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Five Spot Café, owned and operated by brothers Joe and Iggy Termini, became a leading New York destination for bohemians and visiting intelligentsia by presenting the era’s most progressive jazz artists, including Thelonious Monk, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Randy Weston, and John Coltrane. Some of Billie Holiday’s last performances took place there, and although authorities had seized her cabaret card so the engagements could not be publicized, the club filled up by word of mouth alone. In 1959, saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s Five Spot debut introduced free improvisation to mainstream jazz discourse, and although composer Leonard Bernstein visited one night and loudly called it “the greatest thing that has ever happened in jazz,” Coleman’s music remained controversial. Regulars included painter Robert Rauschenberg, poets Ted Joans and Amiri Baraka, and novelists Jack Kerouac and James Baldwin. During the club’s existence, whether as listeners or performers, many of the time’s most adventurous artists passed through its doors. In 1963, the club moved to Two Saint Mark’s Place and Cooper Square, where it lasted until the early 1970s.

New York, New York · United States