The Metropole Cafe was a

jazz club A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music, although some jazz clubs primarily focus on the study and/or promotion of jazz-music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is licens ...

in New York's

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. Located at 725 7th Avenue near

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...

, it was primarily noted in the

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

and progressive jazz era as a venue for traditional musicians. It later featured go-go dancers and rock bands, and was renamed the Metropole Go-Go.

History

The venue's name came from the renowned Hotel Metropole, located at 43rd St. and Broadway in Manhattan. When Ben Harriman took over the Metropole Cafe in the 1950s, he made a few changes to the club's look. Initially, it was a "Gay 90s-type joint" with nostalgic acts for the elderly crowd, featuring old

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

performers. Then, because Harriman loved jazz, he turned the Metropole into "New York's free temple of jazz." Henry "Red" Allen, a New Orleans veteran of many bands, including King Oliver's and Fletcher Henderson's, led the house band beginning in 1954. The Metropole featured jazz performances in the afternoon and evening. Its bandstand was a long runway behind the bar that proved convenient when the club abandoned jazz in later years to feature strippers. Noted songwriters Jim Holvay and Gary Beisbier (who penned hit songs for the Buckinghams in the late 1960s) were part of an R&B band called The Chicagoans who played at the Metropole Cafe in fall 1963. Other resident performers at the club included

Roy Eldridge David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpeter. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from ...

Coleman Hawkins Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969), nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Yanow, Scot"Coleman Hawkins: Artist Biography" AllMusic. Retrieved December 27, 2013. One of the first ...

, Cozy Cole,

Charlie Shavers Charles James Shavers (August 3, 1920 – July 8, 1971) was an American jazz trumpeter who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams, Tommy Dorsey, and Billie Holiday. He ...

, Zutty Singleton,

Claude Hopkins Claude Driskett Hopkins (August 24, 1903 – February 19, 1984) was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader. Biography Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his ...

, J. C. Higginbotham,

Tony Scott Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was a British film director and producer. He made his theatrical film debut with ''The Hunger (1983 film), The Hunger'' (1983) and went on to direct highly successful action and t ...

, Max Kaminsky, Sol Yaged,

Maynard Ferguson Walter Maynard Ferguson CM (May 4, 1928 – August 23, 2006) was a Canadian jazz trumpeter and bandleader. He came to prominence in Stan Kenton's orchestra before forming his own big band in 1957. He was noted for his bands, which often served ...

(in 1964) and

Buster Bailey William C. "Buster" Bailey (July 19, 1902 – April 12, 1967) was an American jazz clarinetist. Career history Early career Buster Bailey was taught clarinet by classical teacher Franz Schoepp, who also taught Benny Goodman. Bailey gained his st ...

. In June 1965,

Gene Krupa Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was an American jazz drummer, bandleader, and composer. Krupa is widely regarded as one of the most influential drummers in the history of popular music. His drum solo on Benny Goodman ...

and Mongo Santamaria performed before Harriman changed the jazz policy. The new policy had go-go dancers with rock 'n roll acts all afternoon, at night, jazz alternating with them 45 minutes each. In 1968, the Metropole was home to a variety of rock bands. Featured were two bands per period; a two-week stint in most cases. The bands alternated sets, each on stage for an hour, over a 12-hour stretch from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. During their individual sets, go-go dancers wearing skimpy bikini outfits were stationed across the runway stage behind the bar, which was usually frequented by older men who might have wandered into the club throughout the day and night. In 1973, after the cafe had closed for the evening, a bomb went off at the Metropole.

In pop culture

In the film version of

Neil Simon Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three ...

's ''The Odd Couple'' (1968), Felix Ungar stops by the Metropole after a

suicide attempt A suicide attempt is an act in which an individual tries to kill themselves but survives. Mental health professionals discourage describing suicide attempts as "failed" or "unsuccessful", as doing so may imply that a suicide resulting in death is ...

at the beginning of the film.

References

Jazz clubs in New York City 1950s establishments in New York City Defunct jazz clubs in New York City {{jazz-venue-stub