Reggae Festival/Burning Spear, Lilith Fair/Heather Nova, Jazz in Great Barrington, No late nights in Lenox
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., July 9, 1998)-- It may be all but impossible to find reggae music at any of the county's major venues this summer, but the heartbeat pulse of the spiritually-oriented, laid-back Jamaican dance music still beats in these parts. For the past eight years an annual highlight of the summer music scene in the Berkshires has been the Rock and Reggae Festival at the Butternut Basin Ski Area in Great Barrington. With little fanfare, this privately-organized, grassroots event annually raises thousands of dollars for homeless children's causes.

This year should be no different, with perhaps the strongest lineup ever, featuring reggae legend Burning Spear, reggae/ska pioneer Winston Grennan - - who played drums with Toots and the Maytals -- and contemporary ska- fusion band Bim Skala Bim headlining the festival this Sunday, July 12. Go Jam Vibration is also slated to appear at the festival, which is scheduled to run from 1 to 8.

As heard on his latest album, "Appointment with His Majesty'' (Heartbeat), Burning Spear's reggae is drenched with socio-cultural and historical messages. Whether he is addressing issues such as environmental awareness ("The Future (Clean It Up)"), greed and urbanization ("Commercial Development") or music's power to heal ("Reggae Physician"), Spear's is a conscious, spiritual brand of reggae. On the album, Spear also pays tribute to the late Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead culture ("Play Jerry") and to his idol, Marcus Garvey, on the title track.

According to organizers, funds raised by the festival will directly support homeless children seeking emergency assistance through the American Red Cross. For more information about the Rock and Reggae Festival or to volunteer, call (413) 274-6584.

Estrogen power

One of the best tracks on "Siren" (Work), the brand new album by Heather Nova, is the hard-rocking "I'm the Girl," which argues the case for a collective female ancestry, both literal and figurative: "I'm a siren, I'll wreck you on my shores/And I'm Godiva, I'll call you back for more/And I'm Medusa, and I'm your favorite doll/And I'm a Georgia O'Keefe hanging on your wall."

The diversity of female iconography painted by "I'm the Girl" could well serve as a metaphor for this summer's Lilith Fair, the all-female, traveling music festival which comes to the Saratoga (N.Y.) Performing Arts Center this Sunday, July 12, at 4:30.

For the second year in a row, the Lilith Fair is one of the hottest tickets on the summer music scene. Founded last year by Canadian pop singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan in part as a response to testosterone- dominated touring festivals like Lollapalooza, Lilith Fair surprised skeptics by proving there is a huge market for intelligent, estrogen-fueled pop music.

This year's festival balances established stars such as McLachlan, Natalie Merchant and Bonnie Raitt with up-and-coming artists including Lauryn Hill of the Fugees, Tracy Bonham, Beth Orton, Imani Coppola and Nova, a former painting and film major at Rhode Island School of Design who grew up on a 40-foot housebeat off the shores of Bermuda.

No late night music in Lenox

In spite of a 3-2 vote in favor, the Lenox Zoning Board last week was able to quash a proposal to allow late-night concerts at the National Music Foundation's small theater through a technicality requiring a 4-1 vote to amend a special permit.

Opposition to the proposal apparently centered around fears that the foundation was attempting to open a nightclub that would disrupt a residential area.

Forget for a moment that almost any location in the Berkshires can be defined as a residential area, or the fact that there has been a campus at the NMF property going back decades.

Forget for a moment the fact that the town of Lenox permits people to congregate in residential areas until 1 or 2 a.m. depending on the day at locations whose sole purpose is the dispensing of alcoholic beverages.

Forget for a moment that the NMF proposal expressly stated that alcohol would not be served at the events after 11 p.m. -- probably not a wise concession on the part of the NMF, commercially speaking, but a generous one from a political point of view.

Forget for a moment that NMF president Gloria Pennington promised nothing "wild or outrageous" at the theater along the lines of -- gasp! -- a "reggae concert."

Forget for a moment that in its greatest dreams, the NMF would probably be lucky to attract a hundred people to the sort of shows it was planning for the venue, or that the number of shows the foundation presents compared to Tanglewood, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Stockbridge Cabaret or Shakespeare and Company -- all of which are located in residential areas -- is minuscule.

Forget all that, and remember this: the days of a Berkshire economy based on manufacturing are long gone. In large part it is being replaced by cultural tourism. While arts organizations certainly need to be considerate of their neighbors, so too is it incumbent upon their neighbors to be accomodating to the needs of the organizations -- whether those needs are the ability to serve food or beverages, to stage performances in alternative spaces at alternative times, or to hang temporary banners or signs apprising newcomers of local exhibitions and attractions.

The NIMBY mentality has no place in "the Cultural Berkshires," especially in the case of the National Music Foundation, which was specifically invited by the town to make its home on Kemble Street in Lenox.

Jazz in Great Barrington

The Celestial Bar at the Castle Street Cafe in Great Barrington continues to feature live jazz every night of the week except Tuesday. Thursday nights are solo piano nights, with local maven Mike Schiffer on tap for tonight and on Sunday, July 12, Charlie Hoyt on July 16 and Bob Benson on July 23. Other upcoming shows of note include the Dave Shapiro Trio this Saturday, July 11, Charlie Tokarz and Friends next Friday, July 17, Teresa Broadwell Trio on July 18, and pianist John Sauer with vibist Ed Mann -- a Berkshire native who played percussion with Frank Zappa for about 15 years -- on July 19. Pianist Lee Shaw, who has been a guest on Marian McPartland's syndicated radio program, "Piano Jazz," appears with his trio on July 24.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on July 9, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]