Paul Brown "PB" (March 6, 1934 – May 6, 2016), was an American jazz bassist. He was the founder of the Monday Night Jazz Series in Hartford, Connecticut, which was recognized by the Library of Congress as the oldest and longest-running free festival for jazz in the United States and featured jazz greats such as Cannonball Adderley, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Ron Carter, Thelonious Monk, Tito Puente, Woody Shaw, Sun Ra, Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton Horace Silver, Hugh Masekela, and the "MJQ" Modern Jazz Quartet just to name a few. Brown also founded The Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz in 1992 to commemorate 25 years of the Monday night jazz series which in 2016, the Hartford Jazz Society renamed "Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz". He was co-founder of Hartford's Artists Collective, Inc.
Brown was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 6, 1934. He grew up in Severn, Maryland and studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music before attending Morgan State University and Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med student. He left school because of lack of money and his desire to pursue a career in music.
He began his professional music career playing trumpet, touring with, Mickey Fields, Lloyd Price, and substituting in the bands of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. He worked with Jimmy Scott, LaVern Baker, Mickey & Sylvia, Clyde McPhatter, The Drifters, The Platters, and Fats Domino.
After switching to bass, he began touring with the Flink Johnson Combo when he met saxophonist Jackie McLean. He moved to Hartford in the early 1960s to be close to New York City where he played in jazz clubs and worked as a studio musician. In 1967, his desire to help quell the civil unrest of the mid 1960s contributed to the founding of the longest-running, outdoor, free jazz concert in the United States.
The Artists Collective, Inc. was founded in 1970 in Hartford by Brown, Jackie McLean, his wife "Dollie" Clarice McLean, dancer Cheryl Smith, and visual artist Ionis Martin. The Artists Collective has been responsible for the tutelage of students including bassist Luques Curtis, saxophonist Jimmy Greene, trumpeter Josh Evans, and bassist Dezron Douglas. Brown also taught at the University of Hartford and the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts for over twenty years. During that time, he and bassist/music producer, Masakazu Fujii organized a foreign exchange student program with Japan.
Brown worked with multiple jazz artists including George Benson, Max Roach, Bobby Hebb, Joe Henderson, Lou Donaldson, Grady Tate, Kenny Burrell, Philly Joe Jones, Walter Bishop Jr., Anita Bryant, Betty Carter, Junior Cook, Bill Cosby, during Cosby’s years with the Ebony Fashion Fair, Dexter Gordon, Al Haig, Bill Hardman, Barry Harris, Freddie Hubbard, Cab Calloway, Peter Nero, Larry Rivers, Hilton Ruiz, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Mickey Tucker, Curtis Fuller, Gene Rodgers, Melba Liston, Dakota Staton, and Sarah Vaughan. Brown toured with Tyler Perry during Perry's Chitlin' Circuit years. He recorded his own albums with George Coleman, Houston Person, and John Stubblefield.[1] Brown died at the age of 82 on May 6, 2016.[2]
As leader
With Walter Bishop Jr.
With Bill Hardman
With George Benson
With Bobby Hebb
With others