Remembering Jazz at the Brooklyn Paramount!

October 15 conference-concert at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus

Brooklyn, N.Y. – “Remembering Jazz at the Brooklyn Paramount,” on Friday, October 15, celebrates Brooklyn’s golden age of jazz with a unique daylong conference and evening concert at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University – in the same hall where many legendary jazz artists once performed!

With “Remembering Jazz at the Brooklyn Paramount,” jazz returns with concert headliners including pianist Bruce Barth, drummer Kenny Washington, the Eric Wyatt Quintet with master alto saxophone player James Spaulding, pianist D.D. Jackson, trumpet player Don Sickler, David Berger and the Sultans of Swing performing excerpts from the Harlem Nutcracker, the LIU All Stars, plus trombonist Eddie Bert, returning after 50 years!

Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, which now includes the former Paramount building, is host of the event. The conference is free and open to the public, with talks by prominent writers such as Gary Giddins, Ira Gitler, Howard Mandel, Dan Morgenstern, Phil Schaap and others, and roundtable discussions between jazz musicians and critics.

Also free and open to the public is an exhibition of rarely seen photographs of top musicians who performed at the theater, held at the Campus’s Salena Gallery, October 14-30, with a wine-and-cheese reception on Thursday, October 14, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Concert tickets are $20 for general admission, $15 for conference participants, seniors and Brooklyn Campus community members, and $10 for students.

A “proletarian palace,” the Brooklyn Paramount Theater opened in 1928 with rococo décor and rows of red velvet seats, drawing hundreds of thousands each week, says event organizer and anthropology professor Michael Hittman.

“While the Brooklyn Paramount is remembered as a popular movie house and early home of rock ‘n’ roll, it is a little known fact that it helped introduce Brooklyn to jazz, with artists like Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis,” he asserts.

Long Island University bought the storied theater at DeKalb and Flatbush Avenues in 1950 and eventually converted it to a gymnasium, dining hall and classrooms within its Brooklyn Campus. More than 12,000 students are enrolled at the Campus today.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn Tourism and Visitors Center, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Arbors Records, Brooklyn Brewery, Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium and Up Over Jazz Café are co-sponsors of the event.

When: Friday, October 15

 Conference – 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Concert – 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.

 Photography exhibition – October 14 to 30, M-F 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; S-S, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.            

Wine-and-cheese opening at the gallery, Thursday, October 14, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Where: Brooklyn Campus, home of former Paramount Theater, DeKalb and Flatbush Avenues

Purchase tickets by phone at (718) 488-1406 or at the box office. For more information, visit www.brooklyn.liu.edu/rememberingjazz or call (718) 488-1406 for tickets.