Pittsfield — You could spend days lounge-hopping through Berkshire County, sampling the area’s best jazz musicians as they perform in such venues as Gateways Inn, Race Brook Lodge, Firefly Gastropub, The Lion’s Den, or any number of other popular night spots. And you would hear some great music. Or, you could hear several performances in a single evening from four top local jazz acts at Bousquet Mountain’s Second Annual Bousquet Jazz Festival on August 19.
Here is the festival’s schedule:
4 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
The Lucky 5 blends 1930s- and ’40s-style swing with Gypsy and Parisian influences in standards and originals. Formerly with the Hunger Mountain Boys and Lauren Ambrose & The Leisure Class, the band has worked with Neko Case, Iris Dement, Bobby Previte, Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale, and many others. The band’s mission is to make people dance, and they have a reputation for doing so at a high level of energy.
Local soul/jazz diva Wanda Houston likes the Lucky Five quite a bit: “If you have not had the chance to spend an evening with the fabulousness that is the lucky five, then you really don’t know what you’re missing. They are five gifted musicians who are altogether transporting and amazingly fun! If you like jazz, historic music, and fun, then you’ll love The Lucky Five as I do!”
5:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m.
Berklee College of Music graduate Claire Daly plays the baritone saxophone with all the sass and flair that she puts into her alto and tenor sax stylings, which served her well as a rock musician early in her career. Now she plays mostly jazz. She released her first album as a leader, “Swing Low,” in 1999. (Fun fact: Bill Clinton liked the record so much, he added it to his presidential library in Little Rock.) Daly is a three-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association’s “Baritone Sax of the Year” Award.
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
According to the New England Conservatory of Music, Dominique Eade is “one of the most dynamic and influential jazz vocalists and jazz educators of the past quarter century.” NEC is where Eade teaches. They go on: “Her daring yet technically precise and emotionally coherent explorations of familiar songs, and her own poetic originals, both honor and expand the jazz vocal tradition, while her work in the classroom has helped shape the careers of Luciana Souza, Aoife O’Donovan, and Rachel Price, among others.”
8:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Pianist Benny Kohn is a household name among Berkshire pop and jazz musicians. Misty Blues, Rev Tor, Berkshire Big Band, Rejuvenators, Paul Green, Samirah Evans, Jack Waldheim, Wanda Houston—all have raved about working with Benny.
Eileen Markland wrote about Benny Kohn for Friends of Windsor:
“His natural talent and keen musical sensibilities grab the listener, his versatility and range unique and impressive. With ease, Benny drifts from genre to genre, from soloist to accompanist, from pianist to vocalist to bandleader … He routinely performs locally and beyond with a very long list of other musicians and in almost every kind of venue and genre imaginable.”
Hear the Lucky Five, Claire Daly Quartet, Dominique Eade, and the Benny Kohn Trio on Saturday, August 19, from 4 to 10 p.m. (rain or shine) at the Second Annual Bousquet Jazz Festival, 101 Dan Fox Drive, Pittsfield. Tickets are available here.
