Summer '99 Pop Preview: Looking for pop in unlikely places
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., May 23, 1999) -- First, the bad news. The days when Lenox was a regular stop for big-name, summer touring acts are all but seemingly over, kaput, finished and done for. Whether or not it is a matter of stated policy, the trend at Tanglewood the last few summers has been toward fewer and fewer pop concerts. Although sources say that this situation might see a turn-around next year, this summer - aside from the annual Independence Day festivities featuring two nights of the redoubtable and irrepressible James Taylor (July 3 and 4) -- there are no popular artist concerts planned at Tanglewood. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

And over on Kemble Street at the Berkshire Performing Arts Theater, where in the course of the past decade audiences have soaked in the likes of David Byrne, Meat Loaf, Phish, Melissa Etheridge, John Hiatt, Jackson Browne and, er, Kenny Rogers, the current management has changed tack 180 degrees. There are no shows slated for the concert hall this summer; instead, an eclectic series of little-known performers and bands will be featured in its newly renovated small theater.

There is, however, one bright spot, one more-than-faint glimmer of hope for local audiences. A small host of live-music alternatives are presenting themselves for the more intrepid concertgoers, those willing to re-think or re-conceive the experience of seeing and hearing live music. Along the way, an openness and willingness to experiment with new styles and genres of music will result in a richer, more diverse menu of musical offerings.

While few of these appearances are being billed as concerts, an astute cultural consumer could see performances by downtown, avant-jazz musicians Don Byron and Dave Douglas, neo-Beat funk-rockers Soul Coughing, new-music legends Philip Glass and Phillip Johnston, and Irish-music superstars Solas and Pat Kilbride, without leaving the Berkshires.

You just have to know where to look, and in some cases you have to read the fine print, as most of these musicians are appearing in collaboration with other artists who get top billing. You also need to shed the preconception that the best in popular (read: non-classical) fare is necessarily being offered up at conventional pop-music venues.

Take, for instance, the programming at the newly-opened Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. On Memorial Day weekend, Mass MoCA kicked off its first full season with a courtyard concert by the popular yet experimental Mexican-American roots-rock band Los Lobos. While except for singer/songwriter Joan Armatrading on Aug. 3, there are no other conventional concerts planned for this summer at MoCA, the newborn cultural factory's multi-media approach will be bringing a wide variety of events to town with musical components.

Perhaps the most boundary-stretching event of the summer -- described as a "3D digital opera" -- will be "Monsters of Grace," the collaboration by new-music composer Philip Glass and dramatist Robert Wilson. Not only did Glass compose the score for the piece - his ensemble will perform it live at MoCA on Saturday, July 17.

MoCA will also be presenting a series of "Swing Shift" dance parties, featuring live bands in a variety of ethnic styles, with professional dancers from Jacob's Pillow on hand to teach the proper steps. This series kicks off on Saturday, June 12, with polka by Grammy nominee Lenny Gomulka and the Chicago Push. Other shows will include neo-swing by Yalloppin' Hounds (June 25), square dancing by Wild Hairs (July 9), Puerto Rican salsa with Viento de Agua (July 31), and Irish step dancing with the Pat Kilbride Band and Tony DeMarco (Aug. 14). Kilbride, incidentally, is also a renowned contemporary Irish singer-songwriter and a member of the Kips Bay Ceili Band.

In their heyday, silent movies were accompanied by live orchestras, and MoCA will bring back that long-lost tradition in a series showing classic films with live musical accompaniment by several top avant-garde music groups, starting on Saturday, June 5, with Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush," featuring the BQE Project's original score composed for traditional instruments. On July 24, Sergei Eisenstein's Soviet classic "Strike" will be accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra, and Phillip Johnston's Transparent Quartet will play along to the freakish cult classic "Unknown" by Tod Browning on Aug. 28.

Call 662-2111 for ticket information for Mass MoCA.

At Jacob's Pillow in Becket, several dances will be accompanied by live music, including "Pasaporte" by Pepatian, with salsa music by Cuban composer Adalberto Alvarez (July 1-4). Ultra-hip downtown jazz trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas, who often performs and records with John Zorn, will accompany Trisha Brown (July 7-11) in a performance which will also include a score by arch-cool performing artist/composer Laurie Anderson.

Indonesian gamelan music from West Sumatra, composed by Tony Prabowo and played live by the New Jakarta Ensemble, will be featured in the performance by Empty Tradition/City of Peonies, which will also include demonstrations of martial arts and the legendary Shaolin monks (Aug. 19-22). Traditional Irish supergroup Solas will be on hand to perform Seamus Egan's score to accompany "Folk Dance for the Future" by the Sean Curran Company (Aug. 26-29). While not promising live performance, the score for the dance-theatre work by 33 Fainting Spells (July 22-25) will include the cutting-edge electronic music style called drum-n-bass as well as original compositions by Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas.

For more information on Jacob's Pillow shows, call 243-0745.

Elsewhere in the Berkshires, there are a few other events for which to a keep an ear out. The Noppet Hill Bluegrass Festival (July 23-25) in Lanesboro has quickly become an annual highlight of the summer season in the Berkshires, and this year's festival, with a completely revised lineup, will likely be no exception as regular attendees will be exposed to a mostly new slate of performers, on a schedule topped by innovative bluegrass artist Laurie Lewis and also including Larry Sparks, James King, the Gibson Brothers, the Goins Brothers, Karl Shiflet and Big Country, Bob Paisley and Southern Grass, Trevor Hollow and Breakaway. The idyllic setting at Steele's Family Farm is worth the price of the ticket alone. Call 499-2805 for more information.

The Berkshire Mountain Music Festival, which washed out in early June last year at Noppet Hill, will make a second go of it, this time at Butternut Basin in Great Barrington (Aug. 13-15). While the lineup is again mostly geared to neo-hippie, noodle-dancing groove-heads, don't let that dissuade you. The hip beats and noir attitude of Simon's Rock alumnus M. Doughty and his bandmates in Soul Coughing - the '90s answer to Talking Heads - are likely to rock the joint. Also on hand will be roots-rockers Los Lobos in their second Berkshire appearance of the season, and Living Daylights, a jazzy trio out of Seattle led by saxophonist Jessica Lurie, definitely worth checking out. Banjoist Tony Trischka, The Slip, Jiggle the Handle, Percy Hill and Strangefolk, and other performers will perpetuate the groove.

And finally, Tanglewood hasn't entirely opted out of presenting jazz, in spite of the incredible shrinking Labor Day weekend jazz festival, now down to just four shows. To Tanglewood's credit, they don't call it a festival anymore - just the modestly named "Jazz Weekend." There's nothing modest, however, about Branford Marsalis, who will kick off the weekend on Sept. 3, or the reliable Dave Brubeck, who will bring down the curtain at Tanglewood on Sept. 5.

But that's not all. Jazz fans will want to mark down July 24th on their calendar as perhaps the highlight of the summer's jazz season. On that night Wynton Marsalis's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will join forces with Seiji Ozawa's Boston Symphony Orchestra in a salute to Duke Ellington, to mark the centennial of the great American composer and bandleader's birth. And if you read the fine print, you'll see that avant-jazz clarinetist and composer Don Byron will be at Tanglewood the night before on July 23, in a late night presentation called "The Composer as Improvisor," as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music.

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[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on June 3, 1999. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1999. All rights reserved.]