Cafe Bohemia T-Shirt

Product Description

Cafe Bohemia became a legend mostly by accident, when Greenwich Village restaurant owner Jimmy Garofolo booked jazz legend Charlie Parker without really having any idea that Parker was a famous jazz musician. Bird, already in serious decline physically and living in relative squalor across the street from the club, died a few days before fulfilling his obligation to Garofolo. Despite Parker’s untimely passing, word had gotten out that Cafe Bohemia was now booking jazz, and for the next few years it became one of the hipper venues in New York City. Oscar Pettiford and pianist Herbie Nichols were regular acts, and Pettiford commemorated the place in his song “Bohemia After Dark.” In addition to playing engagements there, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Randy Weston, Art Blakey, J. J. Johnson and Kenny Dorham all recorded live albums at the club, forever immortalizing its famously intimate setting. Cannonball Adderley was essentially “discovered” at Cafe Bohemia, and in the most rags-to-riches sort of way. Attending a show by Pettiford, a then-unknown Adderley happened to be in the right place at the right time when Jerome Richardson, Pettiford’s regular saxophone player, was unable to make the gig. Noticing Adderley’s alto case on the table, some other musicians in the audience convinced Pettiford to allow Adderley on stage without having a clue whether or not this stranger could actually play. The rest, as they say, is history. Cafe Bohemia is one of those places that just oozes the essence of what Greenwich Village meant in its heyday as a hotbed of the beat counterculture.