Our annual jazz crawl, part of the 2017 Pittsfield CityJAZZ Festival. Sub-optimal audio in some instances, but a good sense of the variety of local artists being presented.
Shown here: Andy Kelly Gypsy Jazz (at J. Allen’s). Banulis and Miller jazz duo (Panchos). John Kozinski guitar duo (Patrick’s). Mary Ann Palermo and First Take (The Rainbow). Sarah Clay (Mission).
Did you miss this year’s Jazz Prodigy concert during the Pittsfield CityJAZZ Festival? Just in case you did, or want to revisit it, here’s a sample, a unique treatment of “Stella By Starlight,” featuring Caelan Cardello. A product of Jazz House Kids, the renowned after-school music program in Newark, New Jersey, Caelan’s trio performed their maiden gig on Oct. 11, at the Berkshire Athenaeum. Watch him!
Saturday, August 26, 3:00pm-8:00pm the HOT SUMMER SWING BASH (rocks and) rolls into Ski Butternut in Great Barrington. There’s some great jazz and swing music in store, including the Squirrel Nut Zippers, local bands, and a discount on tickets, to boot.
The sponsors, Berkshire Bash, are offering an exclusive, special discount offer for friends of Berkshires Jazz that is also a fund-raiser for us. Your ticket is just $30 ($10 off per ticket, which is normally $40), and $5 of that ticket goes directly to Berkshires Jazz. When purchasing your ticket, use code: JAZZ and Berkshire Bash remits $5 per ticket to us!
The day-long festival features national headliner SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS, and local favorites THE LUCKY 5 and BLUE LIGHT TRIO. This family-friendly, fun-filled day also includes ROGER THE JESTER and more kids activities courtesy of United Cerebral Palsy of Berkshire County.
Squirrel Nut Zippers’ music is a high-energy fusion of Delta blues, gypsy jazz, 1930s era swing, klezmer and other styles. Originally formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, their one-of-a-kind sound ranges in influence from Harlem Hot Music to the sounds of Cab Calloway, Johnny Ace, Raymond Scott, Fats Waller, and Django Reinhardt.
Food options include delicious Indian cuisine from Chef Express, SoCo Creamery, and beer & wine from Lefty’s Brewing. Bring a blanket, a picnic and the whole family!
Our “jazz prodigy” series, part of each year’s Pittsfield CityJAZZ Festival, profiles young artists whom we expect to become part of the “main stage” jazz scene. One of the latest to prove us right is our 2013 prodigy, alto saxophonist Zoe Obadaia, who hits the big time with a gig at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York. August, 2017.
Zoe appears with pianist Thomas Linger, bassist Alex Warshawsky, and drummer Zach Adleman. It’s part of the club’s Late Night Sessions, which some of the most talented emerging artists in jazz.
If you ask 10 jazz fans to name the greatest big-band drummer of all time, chances are that 8 or 9 of the responses will be “Buddy Rich.” An icon of speed, precision, and taste, Rich still has a worldwide following, 30+ years after his passing. Berkshires Jazz is celebrating his 100th birthday year with a concert on July 22, featuring the big band of drummer Gregory Caputo.
Caputo has always served as a great ambassador for classic swing and big band jazz. His credits include stints with Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Nelson Riddle, Benny Goodman, Sheila Jordan, Sammy Davis Jr., and countless world class jazz artists. Local fans remember his appearance in Lee with NEA Jazz Master Phil Woods, which turned out to be Woods’ final appearance in the Berkshires.
His big band is a who’s-who of jazz musicians. Called the “keeper of the big band flame” by Jazz Times magazine, Greg’s repertoire is always presented with great precision and spirit. Classic Drummer magazine describes Greg as “a master drummer who speaks volumes in refined sensibilities and superb technique.” An inductee into the National Jazz Archives, he is also on the faculty of UMass’ highly-regarded Jazz In July program.
Fasten your seat belts for a great evening of some of the finest big-band material you’ve ever heard.
The concert is on Saturday, July 22, 7pm, at the Lee Meeting House (Lee Congregational Church), 25 Park Place in the Berkshire Gateway town of Lee, Mass. A stunning venue, both acoustically and visually, a great place to hear a big band. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 on the day of the event. Click here for online box office.
A centennial birthday tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and the reunion of the New Black Eagle Jazz Band with legendary blues guitarist Duke Robillard highlight the sixth annual Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend, June 15-18 in downtown Lee.
The four-day festival also includes a Fine Art show, al fresco food vendors with daytime jazz, and a wine and beer tasting under a tent in Church Park. The weekend activities are bracketed by a documentary movie screening on Thursday, June 15 and a Father’s Day jazz brunch.
A collaboration of Berkshires Jazz, Inc. and Berkshire Gateway Preservation, Inc., the affair takes place in the western Massachusetts town of Lee, the “Gateway to the Berkshires.” The principal performing venue is the Lee Meeting House (a.k.a. Lee Congregational Church), 25 Park Place.
The headline concerts kick off on Friday, June 16, when the Vermont Jazz Center Big Band and Wanda Houston celebrate the 100th birthday of the first lady of song. Performing and breathing new life into the same musical arrangements used by Ella Fitzgerald, the concert features acclaimed vocalist Wanda Houston singing Ella’s renowned parts. She will be backed by the Vermont Jazz Center Big Band. The repertoire will be a tour-de-force of the great American songbook.
Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century…and perhaps the first jazz artist to become a household name. One of today’s outstanding interpreters of vocal jazz and blues, Wanda Houston has loved –and sung along with– Fitzgerald’s music since she was a young girl. Like Fitzgerald, she is a great singer as well as a superb storyteller; she colors the spaces between her songs with fascinating stories of her youth and the trials and tribulations of life on the road.
The Vermont Jazz Center Big Band is a professional community band that comes together under the auspices of the VJC to rehearse and take on projects. The 16-piece band is directed by trumpeter Rob Freeberg and features many top-flight ensemble players and soloists.
Tickets (click here) are $25 in advance ($30 on the day of the event, if available), and at several locations in the Berkshires, including the Lee Chamber Visitor Center and Wood Brothers Music in Pittsfield.
Traditional Jazz At Its Best
On Saturday, June 17, one of the longest-standing, best-known and highly-respected traditional jazz groups, The New Black Eagle Jazz Band returns to the Berkshires after a three-year hiatus. The band has dozens of audio recordings and DVDs to its name, including one that garnered a Grammy nomination. Of their prowess and creativity, the late N.Y. Time critic John S. Wilson wrote that the band is “So far ahead of other traditional bands…there is scarcely any basis for comparison.”
In 2009, the Black Eagles teamed-up with famed guitarist Duke Robillard for a recording called “Nothing But the Blues.” After many years, they are reunited exclusively for the Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend.
Duke Robillard had his first band in high school, and he was fascinated from the beginning by the ways in which jazz, swing, and the blues were linked. In 1967, he formed Roomful of Blues, and the band was tight enough and tough enough to accompany two of its heroes, Big Joe Turner and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson on recordings and in live appearances. The Grammy-nominated guitarist won The Blues Music Awards (formerly W.C. Handy Awards) for “Best Blues Guitarist” four times.
Tickets (click here) are $25 in advance ($30 on the day of the event, if available), and at several locations in the Berkshires, including the Lee Chamber Visitor Center and Wood Brothers Music in Pittsfield.
The event is supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as well as sponsorships from Big Y, Adams Community Bank, Onyx Specialty Papers, Consolati Insurance, Inc. and Aldam Press.
The blood drum spirit jazz ensemble will present a concert of original and traditional music in jazz and global traditions on Sunday, May 7, 2017, at 3 pm at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church at 67 East Street in Pittsfield. It will be to honor and remember those loved ones we have lost through death or separation, notes drummer and leader royal hartigan. The concert is dedicated to Karl Tyler, Clifford Adams, and Mary Ann Knight, a founding member of the Friends of Springside Park. People are invited to bring photos, poems, writings, or other remembrances for display in the church during the concert. The Zion Lutheran Church is collaborating in the support for this performance. A free will offering is requested to assist the churches’ programs.
The ensemble will include saxophonist David Bindman, pianist Matan Rubinstein, bassist Wes Brown, and percussionist royal hartigan, with dancer and Pittsfield native Olivia Ilano, who currently resides in the Pioneer Valley. The ensemble has recorded three double CDs and toured throughout the world, including West Africa, Asia, and the United States.
A Pittsfield native and professor at UMass Dartmouth, hartigan has recently returned from two years in Ghana, West Africa, as a J. William Fulbright scholar/artist at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. While there, blood drum spirit toured across the country, and performed and recorded with local musicians in numerous villages. The work will be released as a film and CD set entitled We Are One with a focus on the connections among the world’s peoples.
For concert information contact royal hartigan at (508) 999-8572 or royaljhartigan@gmail.com.
“Thrush Hour:10 great ladies of jazz” with national recording artist Stephanie Nakasian and the Hod O’Brien Trio. In this program, part of Pittsfield’s annual 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival, Stephanie Nakasian performs selected classic vocal works and describes the historical context of the composition and the original singer.
Stephanie is endowed with unique vocal insights and capabilities that enable her to sing in the styles, and with the sensibilities, of her subjects, who range from Ethel Waters to June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughn, Bessie Smith to Abbey Lincoln, etc.
Her program will include biographical sketches of the original artists that place the music in its era and details its significance in jazz history. The performance and contextual information are based on research she conducted as part of her vocal jazz course at the University of Virginia, and which serve as the foundation for her recording “Thrush Hour: A Study of the Great Ladies of Jazz.”
Saturday, Feb. 13, 8pm
Panchos, 154 North Street, Pittsfield MA 01201
$20 in advance, $25 on day of event.
Online tickets are no longer on sale. There may be a few seats available on-site, please call 413-841-7718 to be sure
“Stephanie Nakasian is a great gift to jazz buffs—and especially to those who love singers. Not just for her exuberant performances but for her ability to articulate in layman’s terms what it is to be a jazz singer. Her latest recording on V.S.O.P. Records, Thrush Hour, combines masterful singing, top-notch musicianship, and an educator’s expertise to deliver a comprehensive study of the great ladies of jazz….Few singers can tell you as much about where their sound comes from.” [All About Jazz]
Berkshires Jazz is proud to present a centennial tribute to jazz giants Billie Holiday and Billy Strayhorn, who were both born in 1915. Featured performers are the DeChamplain Trio, who make their Berkshires debut in our Baba Louie’s Backroom series on Saturday, Aug. 15, 8pm.
The online box office for tonight’s event is closed. There may be a few tickets available at the door, which will open at 7:30pm.
Matt DeChamplain is a one-of-a-kind piano virtuoso, with a range that spans from delicate and intimate to energetic and powerful. A strong improviser and interpreter of the “great American jazz book,” he is joined by his wife, vocalist Atla DeChamplain, and the remarkable bassist Matt Dwonszyk.
Atla is “moving by leaps and bounds towards stardom as a jazz vocalist,” according to the iconic vocalist Jon Hendricks, with whom she has appeared. The fast-rising DeChamplain Trio is a group to be reckoned with, and this is a unique opportunity to hear them in an intimate setting. (Translation: limited seating, get your tickets early).
The date would also be the 90th birthday of piano giant Oscar Peterson, so you can expect some surprises in the evening’s repertoire. Advance reservations strongly advised; dinner available separately, either in the main dining room at any time, or in the backroom after 7pm.
Metro West Thump, the contemporary jazz group from the greater Boston area features originals and favorites from the great American jazz book. After an impressive debut on Third Thursday last October, Metro West Thump takes over Baba Louie’s Backroom as our jazz series continues. Friday, July 10, Baba Louie’s Backroom, 34 Depot St., Pittsfield, MA$20 in advance, $25 on day of concert. Dinner available separately.