GREAT BARRINGTON — A pip of an opportunity — the impromptu invitation to sit in with a jazz band outside the Triplex last summer — has since sprouted and grown into a full-fledged plan to bring busking to the streets of Great Barrington in earnest this summer. Eugene Carr, an entrepreneur by profession who studied cello at Oberlin Conservatory, is at the helm of Berkshire Busk!, being touted as a 10-weekend summer music and arts festival in “America’s Best Small Town” (the honor bestowed upon Great Barrington by Smithsonian Magazine nearly a decade ago). Applications are now open for performers — from musicians and magicians to jazz singers and jugglers — who will take to the streets on Friday and Saturday evenings from July 2 through September 4.
“What I got enthusiastic about is the fact that downtown in the evenings got transformed,” Carr told The Edge of his experience busking last summer. “It was alive, [and] there was a renewed sense of community even in the midst of the pandemic,” he said of the streets that filled with people, gathering together outdoors, “and the music was the glue that held everything together.”
The term “busker” (which derives from the Spanish root word “buscar,” to seek or to search for) is used to describe a musician or performer who takes to the streets or other public venue seeking donations — tossed into a hat or empty instrument case — from passersby. In keeping with this spirit, Berkshire Busk! will not only provide selected performers with a stipend for their participation but also allow — and encourage — the solicitation of tips.
“Think about how magical [it] is: sitting outdoors, the sun is setting, people are congregating, it doesn’t get better than that,” said Carr of his plan to “replicate in spades” the energy that arose last summer in a concentrated circle, including the town gazebo, Castle Street, the length of Railroad Street, and spilling over to the courtyard outside the Triplex.
Zev Jarrett, a saxophone player who hails from Richmond, got in on the action last summer, filling in a few times with a jazz band outside SoCo Creamery. This summer, the soon-to-be graduate of UMass Amherst looks forward to being a Railroad Street regular on Friday and Saturday evenings, weather permitting. “It’s such a cool thing to play on the street and interact with all the people,” Jarrett told The Edge, calling the experience far different from playing in a particular venue pre-COVID. “On the street, everyone walking by really appreciates it,” he said, recalling last summer’s street audiences as “really thirsty to connect.”
Jarrett’s colleagues in the group (which remains unnamed) all attended Monument Mountain, touted as having a “really, really great jazz program” under the tutelage of Jeff Stevens (a well-known jazz trumpeter in the area). Jarrett, a graduate of Lenox Memorial High School, ultimately connected with the South County jazz musicians through a mutual friend. “We all went off to do our own things in college, and the pandemic is kind of what brought us back together,” he said of the impromptu gigs that not only kept Jarrett and his colleagues immersed in their passion, but also earned them some cash. “It depends where you go, and what the weather is like, but in GB — specifically on Railroad Street — we do make a lot of money [in tips],” he said, adding that Erik Bruun, owner of SoCo, also pays them a flat fee.
“Entrepreneurs are people who take an idea — something that does not exist in the world — and go after it,” explained Carr of how Berkshire Busk! evolved. Last summer, as the season wound down, he approached Great Barrington Town Manager Mark Pruhenski with the idea to “take and build upon the kernel of a really wonderful thing and turn it into … something extraordinary.” Carr spoke with a lot of movers and shakers in town — namely business owners — and got what he called “a big green light” to forge ahead with the project.
Berkshire Busk! is made possible by support from its lead sponsors — Calyx Berkshire Dispensary, Départ Wine, Warrior Trading, and Berkshire Money Management — the Downtown Great Barrington Cultural District, and more than 20 other sponsors. The project’s fiscal sponsor is the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires. Pruhenski, speaking on behalf of the town, made the following statement: “We see this festival as an innovative and creative way to help ensure that the stores and restaurants in our downtown district recover from the pandemic, and the many new stores just opening up do so successfully.”
As of early May, Berkshire Busk! has received over 60 applicants for the upcoming summer season. “As much as there is a hunger, a pent-up demand from [local] residents to be with one another, there is a tremendous pent-up demand for performers to get out and play,” Carr said, as evidenced by applicants from as far away as Virginia and Ohio (thanks to the magic of the internet). While Carr could easily fill every slot with musicians, he’s aiming for diversity — in age, race, gender, skill, and genre — to create a cacophony of color and sound stretching from one end of downtown to the other.
“It’s my intention to craft a very broad cultural experience,” said Carr of the project’s cornerstone: Berkshire Busk! is creating a little bit of work, there are jobs to fill, volunteers needed. “We are building this ship as we sail it, and it is very exciting.”
