THE BERKS is known for its power to attract block buster artists such as Boney James and Brian Culbertson who both kicked off the opening weekend with sold out performances, but once you settle into the ebb and flow of the 10 day 2-week festival, some of the most memorable performances are at day parties and niche venues such as the Miller Center for the Arts.
And the totally unscripted events such as Brian Culbertson’s premier of “The Trilogy Tour: Live from Detroit” Premier, which was launched on Sunday, April 6th at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts during the opening weekend of the Berks Jazz Fest in Reading, Pennsylvania.
The Sunday evening event included a 30-minute Q & A, where Brian covered everything from the inspiration for the film to the spiked hair styling product – Rusk paste – that gives Brian that mad scientist Andy Warhol look!
Most of the audience had just seen Brian perform at the Scottish Rites Temple on the previous Saturday night, and it felt like XMAS in April to have an opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with BC again. And oh, by the way, Brian stayed an extra hour signing posters and band members like Darnell “Showcase” Taylor hung around to meet, greet, and take selfies with the BC hardcore fans!
Earlier in the day, Aubrey Logan and Ilya Serov performed a mid-afternoon show at the Miller Center that showcased Aubrey’s Broadway quality vocal and trombone artistry alongside Ilya’s unique “Jazzaphone” which is a combo trumpet and saxophone that he invented.
On the closing weekend, I was blessed to return to the Miller Center to catch a mellow performance of Two Blind Men named Raul Midon and Matthew Whitaker, who offered a combination of Raul’s one-man soulful mature artistry and Matthew’s rambunctious Stevie Wonder youthful R&B band energy.
That 6 o’clock Saturday night respite was just what I needed to recharge my batteries for Stanley Clarke’s featured WHUR special at the DoubleTree Grand Ballroom where he brought the house down with his virtuosos acoustic and electric bass combo with a five piece All-Star band to back him up.
And as a parting performance on Sunday, 2025 Pagoda Award winner Gerald Veasley’s Unscripted Jam started with a mid-morning Brunch and rolled into mid-afternoon as a virtual parade of performers the likes of Marcus Anderson, Andrea Lisa, Bobby Lyle, Brian Simpson, Eric Marienthal, Rebecca Jade, Curtis McCain Tim Huston and Julian Vaugh, graced the stage in wave after wave of high energy Jam session flavor.
THE BERKS is a true jazz festival designed to give attendees an immersive smorgasbord of first-class contemporary, fusion, smooth, R&B and niche jazz performances all in a unique small-town environment that I am proud to say is my Hometown of Reading, PA!
