Pep’s / Jack Goldenberg
Inducted: 2025
Going to Pep’s was a jazz pilgrimage. Jack Goldenberg purchased Pep’s in 1957 for one reason – because he wanted to bring the music back. Jack had an ear for the next best thing and frequently traveled to NYC and even once to Detroit to meet with agents and managers to book the acts who would grace the stages of his club. He honed his craft as an officer in Special Services in World War II, where he learned how to produce shows and how to be an MC, skills that would serve Jack well in the years to come.
Audiences flocked to Broad and South for 13 straight years, 52 weeks a year, where Pep’s and The Showboat were the places to be, twin sanctuaries where services were held eight times a week. Joel Dorn once said that Pep’s and The Showboat weren’t just a part of the scene, they were the scene, and Philadelphia was the music capital of the world at the time. No one knew it then but we now look back on this era as the golden age of jazz.
Along with such celebrated vocalists as Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, Jack Goldenberg brought in national jazz, blues, R&B and soul greats, including Count Basie, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Jimmy Rushing, Quincy Jones, Yusef Lateef (who recorded a live album at the venue) and countless others. Philly favorite John Coltrane also frequently performed at Pep’s.
As Aretha Franklin famously said, “You know, it all began for me in Philadelphia, it all began at Pep’s.”