Dave Brubeck – Inaugural Test Show
Paramount Theatre – February 2, 1975
100th Anniversary Countdown Paramount Theatre Continued!
In 1973, my two partners and I (Chuck Eckerman and Steve Scott) set about on an odyssey to save and restore the Paramount Theatre in downtown Austin, Texas – just 4 blocks south of the State Capitol. The Paramount was one of a dazzling array of historic theatres built around the country from the late 1880’s to the 1930’s. Sadly, the era of inner city decay saw many of these incredible theatres torn down for parking lots and newer buildings. It is impossible to explain the importance of these historic theatres in a few words. They represent a bygone era of magnificent architecture, “atmospheric” palaces, the biggest performing stars on earth (touring by train in those days) and an audience in desperate need to leave the problems of the world behind for a couple of hours of fantasy and pure joy. (See detail of the early days i.e. save the Paramount).
http://www.austintheatre.org/site/PageNavigator/venues/paramount/history
During that first year we were having a good deal of trouble getting anyone to pay attention to the Paramount. To many people, it was just an old, broken down theatre that had long since seen its heyday in an area of Austin that was a ghost town at 5:30pm. Many of the buildings on Congress Avenue were boarded up. Still others housed subpar businesses that further added to the unattractiveness of the area. The Paramount owners – ABC Interstate Theatres – had ceased all maintenance of the building in order to cut their operating losses. The interior of the theatre was dirty, cheesy with worn out seats and the smell of dead rats in the plaster walls. Worse, the Paramount had begun to show “exploitation” product common at these downtown theatres nationwide. I will never forget the first time I bought a ticket to the Paramount to really see the theatre.
The marquee read The Five Flying Fingers of Death starring Bruce Lee (Kung Fu icon). There couldn’t have been more than a dozen men in the theatre at 3pm in the afternoon. It was a sad sight.
My primary reason for buying a ticket was to roam around the theatre to give it the once over. Even after the years and lack of attention, there was no doubt this was a stunningly beautiful theatre in all ways. My bigger concern was backstage. Some of the old theatres were built primarily as movie houses and had no backstage. Others were built as legitimate theatres (live entertainment versus the upstart movie industry) and did have a full stage house with rigging, fly loft, ample space and more. These elements were critical to the Paramount being rejuvenated as a performing arts facility staging the finest touring shows in the country these past 35 years. We were in business! We had only problem. We had no money, no contacts, no influence, no muscle, no one knew us and we knew almost nothing about how a theatre functioned, business wise. Other than that we were 100%. Coining that famous saying, “We were too stupid to realize it was impossible”.
Now I’m going to skip forward. There was only one way to find out if Austin and surrounding communities would patronize the Paramount. So, we decided to do three test shows on days we rented the theatre when the general manager of the Paramount could drop the film showings that night. Those first three shows were Dave Brubeck and Sons, Herbie Mann and The Turn of the Screw opera by Benjamin Britten staged by the Texas Opera Theatre – the touring unit for the Houston Grand Opera. (FYI – Charlie Root – the city manager for seven theatres owned by ABC Interstate Theatres – had been an usher at the Paramount during its heyday. He hated how low the theatre had sunk. It was his trust, faith and vision that gave us the initial leg up within the elusive social world of Austin.)
We chose Dave Brubeck as our inaugural show because we all (the three of us) were big jazz fans. Also, Dave was a legend and a world class musician who had redefined jazz time signatures and the jazz medium. In other words, he was perfect to show what the Paramount could do beyond the Bruce Lee films fascinating though they were. At that time in 1974, Dave was doing a tour with his three sons billed Dave Brubeck and Sons. Dave opened the show with a typical Brubeck set backed up by his sons and a fourth musician named “Mad Cat”. More on him later! Then, the sons did a set with their very unique sound which is almost impossible to describe so new was it to my ears. Their set had a lot of power and was extremely frenetic.
Mad Cat was a total surprise. At first, I thought he might have been a roadie with Dave’s show. He looked more at home at the Armadillo Headquarters than with Dave. Very low key, quiet, clothes that redefined laid back and a clear plastic sack tied around his neck with – vegetables. He wore this ensemble with sack on stage during the show. Mad Cat is finest harp player I have ever heard in my entire career. What this guy could do with an array of harmonicas is beyond the written word. He added that extra kick that put the show in to the stratosphere and that is an understatement. He is still working out there somewhere right now. Find him and go wherever he is playing.
Dave and his sons closed with the final set which was sort of a composite of sets one and two. They did two shows that night to expand the 1300 seats to achieve a higher gross potential. It was obvious Dave was having the time of his life in a departure from his normal show. All interesting stuff but not the point of this story! Oh, we paid Dave $3,000 that night – for 2 shows. We sold a half a house for each show or around 700 x 2 = 1,400 people for our first test show. I think we netted $1,500 which seemed good to us. Hell, this business is easy money!
I stood in the back or the orchestra which was to become my normal spot during shows giving me the flexibility to watch the show, to make sure the technical part of the show was in gear, to make sure the audience was behaving and to go back and forth to the box office to check sales and to get ready for the financial settlement with the act and/or it’s road manager.
The interior of the theatre was very poorly lit so people couldn’t really see the gingerbread plaster work, 1930’s art deco chandeliers, and silk fabric in the wall panels, the gilded proscenium arch and so on. The opera boxes had been torn out in the 1930 renovation when ABC Interstate “modernized” the theatre for film, added air conditioning, took out the old wooden seats and wood ceiling fans and so on. The audience could see the “fire curtain” with its incredibly beautiful pastoral scene painted like on a gigantic artist’s canvass for theatre. They call this a fire curtain because its main function was to block off the stage from the audience in the event of a backstage fire – not uncommon in the time these theatres were built. The curtain is actually made of asbestos and hangs there to this day – colors vibrant due to no contact with the rays of the sun. Fire happens – fire curtain drops to stage automatically due to a little piece of wax holding a part of the rigging that would melt at high temperatures releasing the fire curtain.
As soon as the curtain went up it was like walking in to a Fellini art directed movie. The lighting on stage for Dave refracted out in to the theatre where the old girl flaunted her stuff. I swear I heard an audible gasp from the audience at the sight – Dave Brubeck on stage in a theatre nobody had frequented in probably three decades for a big time live show in a fantasyland theatre. The air was supercharged. The electrical soul connection between Dave and his audience was visceral and almost surreal. I couldn’t believe that my partners and I had been the catalyst for this wondrous event. What an honor.
Dave and his sons absolutely blew people away with their awesome musicianship, professionalism and heart. The audience was levitating. Some of the most breathtaking moments were when Dave would play solo with minimal amplification. That’s when we and the audience got a firsthand sense of the astounding acoustics of the Paramount. Even the smallest nuance on the keyboard could be heard at the top of the upper balcony. The architects of these European opera house style theatres were geniuses with the use of plaster throughout the auditorium that acted like a gigantic sound shell used by symphonies and classical artists to this day to move the sound from the stage to the audience without amplification to experience the music in a natural way. I wonder how many big time rock stars, pop bands and others could create a sound of consequence without the vast array of electronic equipment that modifies the actual sound in any way the sound engineer chooses to “enhance” the show. You would be surprised what some major stars sound like out of the recording studio.
Bottom line – our first test show was a success beyond anything we could have envisioned. The buzz from the audience at intermission and after the show was like a million bees swarming at the hive. People were amazed that such a theatre even existed in Austin. Dave’s genius lit them up like a million fireflies. And the Paramount embraced them all – happy to once again have love and a purpose to return to its destiny as one of the nation’s top showcases for world class entertainment of all varieties. The Paramount is alive with the spirits of the hundreds of artists, stage crews and audiences going back to its grand opening in October 11, 1915. I know. I could feel their presence when alone on stage with no one in the theatre in those very early days. That is why theatres have “ghost lights” on stage that are always “on” when everyone else leaves to go home. It is a light on a very simple wrought iron stand to illuminate the way for those still in residence in the theatre.
After the show one of Dave’s sons said Dave wanted to see me in his hotel room at the Driskill Hotel. I “floated” from the Paramount to the elevator and down the hall to his room. Dan Brubeck opened the door to his father’s room and said, “Dad – are you ready for John”? I heard a faint “yes”. I walked in and there was Dave Brubeck in bed under the covers with a great set of simple but elegant white pajamas sitting up and his white hair flowing like a musical Buddha. I couldn’t speak. He said, “Well, how’d I do John”? I almost started to cry. Here was one of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived asking me in all sincerity what I thought. He was not kidding. I said “Dave, you and your sons may have just saved the Paramount from the wrecking ball.” By the time of this engagement, Dave Brubeck had already been touring 30 years playing to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. And I got to see him in his PJs like a big kid, smiling ear to ear like a Cheshire cat in absolute peace and joy and harmony with life. God love him. We would present Dave Brubeck three more times by the time I left the theatre in June, 1985.
