Rave Review: Presenting concert jazz in the Berkshires
by Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., April 11, 2001) - For most of his adult life, Robert Kelly has been performing a delicate balancing act between the roles of musician and builder.

The Fitchburg native is an alumnus of Berklee School of Music and a former music teacher who has also spent years restoring old inns around New England. But with the Rave Review Music Series, of which he is founder and artistic director, Kelly thinks he has finally found the perfect way to combine his talents for building and performing, by presenting jazz and American popular music in the dignified, acoustically-correct concert setting in the organ room at Searles Castle.

"Mainly it's about presenting jazz in a concert setting with a good piano," said Kelly in a recent phone interview from his home in Lee. "There's some wonderful music in area clubs, too, and I enjoy going to them. But we're a concert setting doing more traditional music," said Kelly, who runs the "Jazz at the Castle" series with event coordinator Trudi Jensen.

Kelly chooses the performers for the series, who range from world-famous artists such as Dave McKenna and Dick Hyman to relative unknowns like clarinetist Evan Christopher, who performs traditional-style New Orleans jazz on Saturday, April 14, at 7:30. For information and reservations call 413-528-8082. Kelly, a pianist, accompanies most of the musicians who perform in the series. It's an arrangement not without precedent, resembling Hyman's "Jazz in July" program at the 92nd Street Y in New York and the setup for Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz" program on public radio. Locally, it also recalls Yehuda Hanani's theme-based "Close Encounters With Music" classical music series.

"I'm honored to be involved with some of these players," said Kelly. "I respect all these great musicians so much. I'm just a student, and this has been a great training ground for me. My desire is to be on a higher level of playing, and it's definitely brought my playing up." Kelly has been playing piano since he was five years old. Since leaving Berklee he has juggled hats as a music teacher, performer and builder, and for a while worked with Manhattan Transfer vocalist Cheryl Bentyne on her solo cabaret act. But until recently Kelly hadn't pursued music performance on a full-time basis, and as long as he was involved in construction there was a built-in limit on how much he could do. "Building hurts my hands," he said.

Now, Kelly can focus on practicing and performing exclusively. He did a recital of "Rhapsody in Blue" in Boston earlier this week, is performing with Christopher and his quartet tonight, and is headed to Chicopee for a concert next week.

In between practicing and performing, Christopher heads to New York and Boston to scout talent for the Rave Review series. "I'm primarily a player, but to find talent you have to go and see talent," said Kelly, who moved to Lee four years ago from near Mystic, Conn. "Basically, I'll hear someone, see their personality, pick up on what they're doing and say this'll be a great show to do in the Berkshires. Often it's by chance, someone knows someone who knows somebody." For example, it was Dick Hyman who told Kelly about Christopher. "He's just a fabulous, real authentic Creole-style player. And he lives in Scotia, N.Y., near Albany." Upcoming performers include famed fusion guitarist Larry Coryell on May 12, pianists Dick Hyman and Derick Smith on June 23, trumpeter Lou Columbo on July 21, and pianist John Hicks on Aug. 18. Kelly will accompany all save for the Hyman/Smith duet program; two's a company, three's a crowd. The initial success of the series, which began a little over a year ago and which takes place in the 150-seat organ room of the 1888 castle, has led to interest in developing the site as a multicultural arts center.

But Kelly's attention is fixed on the jazz series for now. His long-term goals for Rave Review include the possibility of extending the run and turning it into a road show. "We could take the show the next night into Boston or New Haven or Hartford, some other place in New England, to spread it around a bit."

Kelly also said that all the shows are being audiotaped and videotaped for eventual use in an educational setting. "I hope to have them available for schools," he said. "The whole mission is about how to bring this into schools and how to get funding so that we can give away a certain amount of seats to students who are interested."

In the meantime, with consistent sellouts, Kelly is pleased with the audience response. "I like the professionalism that classical people keep in their lives, where they practice and have good instruments to play and people come to listen, which is why I'm thrilled at the response at the castle. There's definitely a market for this up here."

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 14, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]