Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins, Travis Tritt coming to National Music Center this summer
by Seth Rogovoy

(LENOX, Mass., April 29, 1998) -- Country artists Travis Tritt and the Mavericks and jazz legends Sonny Rollins and Wynton Marsalis are some of the biggest names expected to appear at the National Music Foundation's Berkshire Performing Arts Theatre this summer.

On the eve of its weekend-long Berkshire Music Festival -- featuring country-folk singer Nanci Griffith on Saturday night and an all-day showcase of Berkshire musicians on Sunday -- the Eagle has learned that the foundation is planning an ambitious concert series combining well- known performers with long-time cult favorites and rising young stars.

The series will include the critically-acclaimed David Grisman Quintet, new country singer Michael Peterson, and several other performers in folk, pop and other genres to be announced later.

In addition, the foundation is expected to book a series of shows by developing artists into its newly-renovated Little Theater.

An official announcement of the foundation's summer plans is expected soon.

Marsalis, the trumpeter, composer and unofficial ambassador of jazz to a new generation, will kick off the summer concert season at the foundation on Sunday, July 5, leading the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in a program of jazz suites, featuring compositions by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Marsalis's own new work, "Big Train."

The Mavericks, a retro-country outfit that looks to the heyday of singers like Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and Ray Price for inspiration, will perform on Thursday, July 30. Rolling Stone magazine called the group's latest album, "Trampoline," a "lavish valentine to a simpler time when pop, country and Latin weren't worlds apart and it was possible to jump between styles without permission from your label."

Mandolinist David Grisman will bring his genre-defying, acoustic-music quintet to BPAT on Aug. 8. Perhaps best known for his work in bluegrass -- particularly his collaboration with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, called "Old and in the Way" -- Grisman is a pioneer of so-called new- acoustic music. His particular style, which he calls "dawg music," combines bluegrass, swing, jazz, gypsy, Latin, blues and Klezmer. Grisman also runs his own record company, Acoustic Disc, whose self- declared mission is "the preservation and integrity of acoustic music, musicians and instruments."

Legendary tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whose performance was a highlight of last year's jazz festival at Tanglewood, will return to Lenox on Saturday, Aug. 22. Known for his muscular style, heroic improvisations and Calypso-inflected compositions such as "St. Thomas" and "Don't Stop the Carnival," Rollins has pretty much singlehandedly defined the jazz mainstream in the post-bop era.

Up-and-coming country singer Michael Peterson will perform on Wednesday, Aug. 26. Country mega-star Travis Tritt, who has topped the country charts for the better part of the last decade with hits such as "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" and whose autobiography borrows the title of another hit, "Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof," will perform on Thursday, Sept. 17.

All shows are at 8. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Monday, May 18. Foundation members will get an early chance to buy tickets beginning on Friday, May 15. For more information call 637-1800.

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 30, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]

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