 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
|
The 500-seat Imperial Room is a major events venue at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The hall is located on the lobby level of the hotel and has hosted major events, such as addresses to the Empire Club of Canada, but was more important historically a famous nightclub-dinner club.
The Fairmont Royal York, formerly and commonly known as the Royal York, is a large historic luxury hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located along Front Street West, the hotel is situated at the southern end of the Financial District, in Downtown Toronto. The Royal York was designed by Ross and Macdonald, in association with Sproatt and Rolph, and built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company. The hotel is presently managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.
It became famous due to Canadian impresario and orchestra leader, Moxie Whitney. The Moxie Whitney Orchestra played in the Imperial Room continuously from 1948 to 1972, with the exception of 12 months during a Royal York Hotel strike, in 1960/61, when he and his orchestra played the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.
Moxie Whitney also booked all talent for Canadian Pacific Hotels during most of that period.
Welsh bandleader and pianist Allan Singleton-Wood, who had in the late 1960s moved to Canada and joined Whitney’s orchestra, took over in 1971 the contract for the provision of music at the hotel including the Black Knight and Imperial Rooms. In the following years, the Allan Singleton-Wood Orchestra would become one of the best-known dance orchestras in Canada. [1]
Allan Singleton-Wood is a Canadian former professional pianist and music director of the BBC Welsh Dance Orchestra, the featured orchestra on the BBC national television series "Swing High." In 1965, he started a second career in publishing, eventually becoming publisher of a number of Canadian national newspapers and magazines, including the Financial Post, Canadian Business, and Small Business.
Gino Empry took over the booking of acts in the room in 1972. Vegas style shows were brought in by Tibor Rudas, a famous Vegas producer, along with Broadway-style musicals, and attendance declined. Eventually the Imperial Room closed as a showroom, and today it is used for functions and has been restored to its former glory.
Prior to renovations in the 1990s, and from its opening date, the Imperial Room was a famous nightclub in Canada. Situated on a north-south axis, visitors were welcomed into the room by showbusiness maitre'd Louis Jannetta, famous for refusing Bob Dylan entrance because he wasn't wearing a tie; and booking agent, Gino Empry, manager of Tony Bennett for 12 years.
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been a major figure in popular culture for six decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied pop-music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture.
Anthony Dominick Benedetto, known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. He is also a painter, having created works under the name Anthony Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York.
Descending a small flight of stairs into a large rectangular sunken area, round tables were waited upon by dozens of waiters and serving staff. Behind brass rails tables viewed the shows. An overly small rectangular stage to the north, with scarce elevation, hosted the grandest international and Hollywood stars, as well as big bands before a tiny pine-wood dancefloor.
Famous legendary performances by popular entertainers included: Marlene Dietrich on her farewell tour, the last performances of Johnny Hodges with the Duke Ellington Orchestra...Count Basie, Woody Herman, Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, and the first appearances doing comedic impressions in 1982 of future Canadian star, Jim Carrey.
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich was a German-American actress. Throughout her long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, she continually reinvented herself.
John Cornelius Hodges was an American alto saxophonist, best known for solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932 and 1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946, when he was given the lead chair. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophone players of the big band era.
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than fifty years.
The circuit of grand nightclubs in Canada also included those at railway hotels such as: Chateau Lake Louise, Hotel Saskatchewan, Banff Springs, the Brant Inn in Burlington, Ont., the Savarin Tavern, and the Elmwood Casino in Windsor Ontario. The Imperial Room was always seen as the premiere of these.
