Artist: Paul Brown

Paul Brown "PB" 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.

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.

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., Betty Carter, Junior Cook, 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.

Further information about Paul Brown is found here.