Step inside this Mattress-Stuy brownstone and also you’ll swear you’ve been whisked again to a jazz venue in Forties Brooklyn.
Housed in a Nineteenth-century dwelling with floral drapes, moody lamps and stay music, this intimate Victorian parlor revives the borough’s storied musical roots — no time machine required.
Welcome to BrownstoneJAZZ, the romantic, toe-tapping sizzling spot that’s placing Brooklyn again on the jazz map — and selecting up a brand new technology of followers on Instagram and TikTok within the course of.
The venue at 107 Macon St. — based by newly topped “jazz hero” Debbie McClain and co-owner and music director Eric Lemons — is an element speakeasy, half stage, half black historical past museum.
And each weekend, it transforms right into a swinging tribute to the borough’s deep jazz legacy.
“Most individuals who stay in Mattress-Stuy don’t know what was as soon as right here. There have been main recordings and performances on this neighborhood that impacted the entire musical world,” Lemons informed The Publish.
Contained in the efficiency room, a trio of glowing lamps — one purple, one orange, one inexperienced — bathe the “ballroom,” as McClain calls it, in a mesmerizing, ethereal glow.
Ornate white floral molding strains the partitions, flanked by classic mirrors, tasseled paisley sconces, angel-footed lamps and a framed black-and-white shot of Billie Vacation mid-performance in 1947.
With an upright grand piano, double bass, drum set and vinyl data from Scott Joplin to John Coltrane on show, the entire house looks like a jazz lover’s dream frozen in time — simply how McClain deliberate it.
“This venue is so distinctive and particular as a result of while you enter it, you are feeling as in case you’re stepping again in time,” singer and BrownstoneJAZZ performer Kathryn Farmer informed The Publish.
On a latest steamy Saturday night time, Farmer took the mike alongside a lineup of native legends, which rotate each week — Persistence Higgins on sax, Bruce Cox on drums, Yovanne Pierre on piano and Lemons on bass — for a soul-stirring set that had the viewers swaying, snapping and erupting into applause after each tune.
Farmer dazzled with a riveting tackle George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” whereas singer and violinist Mimi Block later scatted and bowed her manner via the blues traditional “I’d Slightly Drink Muddy Water” whereas backed by the band.
“Our performances are a mixture of deliberate songs and improv,” Higgins, who performed with Aretha Franklin and Stevie Marvel, informed The Publish. “Typically we even take viewers requests.”
That spontaneity, paired with the parlor’s plush atmosphere, creates a spellbinding impact — one which has been going down for 16 years.
Step into the parlor
Born in Harlem and raised in Brooklyn, McClain grew up tickling the ivories and belting out ballads — performing on the Brooklyn Academy of Music and singing with the All-Metropolis Faculties Choir.
BrownstoneJAZZ got here to life in 2010 after McClain turned the household dwelling right into a mattress and breakfast known as Sankofa Aban.
So it was no shock when, a 12 months after opening the B&B, she remodeled the yard of the house right into a jazz haven, often called Jazz Below the Stars, to honor her and her household’s love of the style.
“Music has at all times been so vital to our household, and so has this brownstone,” mentioned McClain’s brother, Arnold McDonald, who helps examine tickets and greet company at every present.
McClain met her buddy and co-owner, Lemons, when she employed him to play bass for these early yard units. “He truly satisfied me to carry the music into the parlor, and 16 years later, right here we’re,” she informed The Publish.
Now known as the BrownstoneJAZZ Weekend Live performance Sequence, McClain and Lemons often promote out 4 reveals a weekend: Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., and Sunday “after-brunch” units at 4 and 6 p.m. — with tickets priced at $55.30.
It’s “dress-to-impress” however removed from stuffy. The venue doesn’t serve alcohol or meals, so company BYOBB — that’s “carry your personal brown bag” — and sip discreetly whereas the band performs.
What started as a modest open mic has grown right into a tightly curated live performance room — with McClain and Lemons now reserving style heavy-hitters on the common, like Higgins, saxophonist and flutist James Spaulding, nine-time Grammy-nominated percussionist Bobby Sanabria, vocalist Carla Prepare dinner, and the late trombonist Kiane Zawadi.
After a pandemic pause, BrownstoneJAZZ skilled a serious resurgence in 2023, due to viral buzz and a rising Gen Z fanbase.
“Lots of them aren’t even enormous jazz followers — they only noticed a clip on social media and need to really feel the power and listen to the music in individual,” Lemons informed The Publish.
And as soon as they’re inside, he makes positive they depart with greater than only a nice set.
‘Actual jazz’ in Mattress-Stuy
Every night time, Lemons delivers a monologue filled with jazz historical past and Mattress-Stuy pleasure.
He tells audiences how bebop was born proper right here, how Lena Horne lived on this avenue and the way the borough rivaled Manhattan’s jazz scene with 27 golf equipment within the ’60s.
Again then, Mattress-Stuy boasted greater than 20 bustling jazz joints, Lemons informed The Publish.
Mattress-Stuy’s jazz roots run deep. The neighborhood as soon as rivaled Harlem with its booming mid-century scene. Legendary jazz drummer Max Roach was raised in Mattress-Stuy and helped pioneer the bebop model of jazz.
“They [music historians] at all times discuss Midtown and Harlem and Manhattan. For those who had been round within the ’40s and wished to listen to actual jazz, you’d come to Mattress-Stuy.”
Immediately, BrownstoneJAZZ is carrying that torch, being the one Mattress-Stuy venue that performs traditional Forties and Nineteen Fifties-style American jazz.
For Lemons, jazz is greater than music — it’s an American artwork type, a cultural lifeline, and a narrative too few have heard.
“It’s vital,” he informed The Publish, “as a result of most individuals by no means study black excellence and contributions to music at school.”
BrownstoneJAZZ, he mentioned, helps repair that.
“There are only a few jazz venues which are nonetheless black-owned in New York Metropolis like ours is,” Lemons mentioned. “That tells us now we have loads of work to do in preserving historical past.”
‘Being shared amongst generations’
The work is paying off. Lemons mentioned that 95% of their viewers is made up of “out-of-towners” — from Ohio to Poland to Switzerland — and plenty of uncover the venue via social media.
“I heard about BrownstoneJAZZ due to my algorithm on Fb, and my daughter purchased me a ticket for my birthday,” H. Bosh Jr., an viewers member, informed The Publish. “I drove 4 hours to get right here, from simply exterior of Schenectady. I like jazz, and this was so value it.”
McClain sees it, too.
“This set is even youthful than the final set,” she mentioned as concertgoers trickled in for the 9:30 p.m. Saturday present.
McClain and Lemons are happy with the present they placed on — particularly once they witness viewers members absorbing the power “we’ve been feeling for years,” Lemons informed The Publish.
“After they truly pay attention, put their telephones down and give attention to our music, it’s so particular,” he mentioned.
“Typically I’ll see youthful individuals within the viewers return for extra reveals with their older relations, and that’s so significant to me — to see jazz being shared amongst generations.”
