The Legendary Brooklyn Paramount Theatre

— Renowned movie and rock ‘n’ roll palace remembered for jazz at conference/concert Friday October 15, 2004 —

When the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre opened in 1928, it was the world’s first theater built expressly for talking pictures. Through the years, it also offered great vaudeville performers, and later, major stars like Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman. In the fifties, the Paramount created a sensation with Alan Freed’s famous rock ‘n’ roll shows with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and others.

What many people don’t recall is that, additionally, the Paramount was a jazz cathedral. Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis are among the legends who performed on its stage. The Paramount brought jazz to Brooklyn.

Considered a “proletarian palace,” the rococo-designed theater, had 4,188 seats covered in burgundy velvet. Its sky-blue ceiling had painted clouds, and its opulence included extensive Renaissance-imitated statuaries and sculptures. A 60-foot stage curtain was decorated with satin-embroidered pheasants. There were huge chandeliers and fountains with goldfish.

The original Mighty Wurlitzer theater organ, second in size only to the organ at Radio City Music Hall, still plays, with its 2,000 pipes and 257 stops that can imitate everything from a brass band to a honky-tonk piano.

In 1950, Long Island University bought the storied theater and eventually it became part of the University’s show in 1963, when the theater closed. The lush orchestra seats made way for a gymnasium, where cherub statues now watch Blackbird NCAA Division I basketball and volleyball games. The University also saved the magnificent lobby (now the Brooklyn Campus cafeteria) and the Mighty Wurlitzer from the wrecker’s ball. The organ is played at basketball games (by Yankee organist Eddie Layton) and organ concerts featuring top organists.

On October 15, Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus (at Flatbush and DeKalb avenues in Downtown Brooklyn) celebrates the landmark’s jazz history with an all-day conference, “Remembering Jazz at the Brooklyn Paramount,” an art exhibit featuring photographs of jazz greats who played at the theater, and a jazz concert in the evening. Tickets are available by phone, (718) 488-1406, or at the box office. For information, call (718) 780-4587 or (718) 488-1015 (media), or visit www.brooklyn.liu.edu/rememberingjazz. It is convenient to most subway lines.