Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook

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Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook (short: The Meadowbrook ) was an American venue in the field of swing and popular music . The bar became legendary under the leadership of band leader Frank Dailey.

Dailey formed his first band on the east coast of the United States in the early 1920s , where he performed in the seaside resorts. His later musicians in bands like his Stop and Go Orchestra included u. a. trumpeters Ralph Muzzillo and Corky Cornelius , arranger Joe Mooney , George Paxton and pianist Arnold Ross ; Band singers were Louise Wallace and Edythe Wright . Dailey recorded with his orchestra for the Embassy, Bluebird , Vocalion and Variety labels . In 1930 Dailey opened a ballroom; there he hoped to be able to highlight his new band, the Meadowbrook Syncopators .

Frank Dailey is remembered less as a band leader, but mainly because of his legendary ballroom Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook , which soon became one of the classic venues of the big band era. It was on Route 23, on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike in Cedar Grove, New Jersey , where in the 1930s and 1940s a. a. the popular dance bands of Carmen Cavallaro , Larry Clinton , Ralph Flanagan , Guy Lombardo , Ozzie Nelson or Sammy Kaye and the great swing bands of Charlie Barnet , Bob Crosby , Duke Ellington , Benny Goodman , Hal Kemp , Gene Krupa , Buddy Rich , Glenn Miller , Jack Teagarden and His Orchestra , Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey performed. In Meadowbrook, u. a. also the vocalists Rosemary Clooney , Nat King Cole , Helen O'Connell , Doris Day , Frank Sinatra , Dean Martin and Jo Stafford . The place was so famous at the time that a song "Prompton Turnpike" was composed, which Charlie Barnet's orchestra played.

From 1953 to 1956, the hour-long television show Music from the Meadowbrook was broadcast regularly . In the post-war years, however, the popularity of the Meadowbrook declined until Dailey finally had to declare bankruptcy; he died in February 1956. The Meadowbrook was initially closed and only opened for summer theater and parties. In 1959 it was reopened as a dinner theater and continued under different management; the Maynard Fergusons Orchestra performed there in 1977 . Stars such as Van Johnson , Orson Bean , Dorothy Lamour , Eve Arden and Ann Sothern performed there in shows on Broadway . Eventually the theater was closed in the 1980s and the premises were used for a disco and as a performance space for rock 'n' roll bands. In 1987 Meadowbrook closed for good and became a Sts. Kiril and Metodij Macedonian Orthodox Church continued. In 2003, a charity gala was held with the Glenn Miller Orchestra; A Centennial Ball was held there in 2008 to celebrate the centenary of Cedar Groove .

Web links

swell

  • Leo Walker: The Big Band Almanac . Ward Ritchie Press, Pasadena 1978

Remarks

  1. ↑ dates of life: * 1901 ; † February 27, 1956 in Montclair (New Jersey) .