Jazz has had a long history at the University of Idaho as next week we celebrate the 49th year of the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.  Just a few years before the beginning of this epic event, the Student Union Ballroom, now the International Ballroom in the Bruce Pitman Center, was dedicated in style with Louis Armstrong and his six-piece instrumental band and vocalist Jewel Brown.

Billed as a dance with an intermission performance of jazz, the ceremony drew a crowd of around 2,400 people, just under half of the total student enrollment for that year.  The crowd closed down the venue at 1:30am, but reconvened at the adjacent coffee shop the Blue Bucket for another 2 hours to eat, talk and sign autographs.