Press

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield’s Juneteenth celebration at Durant Park came at an interesting time for Cristiane Richardson — a day after she voted for the first time ever.

Sunday’s celebration, hosted by the Berkshire County branch of the NAACP, was held in advance of the federal holiday acknowledging the liberation of American slaves on June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers announced the freedom of nearly 250,000 slaves in the state of Texas by executive decree over two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Richardson, 19, said that the timing was fitting. When she went to the ballot box on Saturday in Albany, N.Y., where she’s a resident, she was already reflecting on Black history and the significance of her vote.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield’s Quintin Sumpter next fight, this Saturday, will be his biggest yet.

Following up his victory on March 23 at Pandemonium at the Palladium 3, the fighter out of Cherry Street Boxing (7-2, 4 KOs) will face Sonny “The Bronco” Conto (12-0, 9 KOs) in an eight round heavyweight bout this weekend. It will be the main event at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. Not far from Conto’s hometown of Philadelphia.

“I’m feeling good, been training for a couple weeks. Been getting a lot of sparring in. I feel great about it,” said Sumpter in a phone call to The Eagle. “I know what I’m going into. I’ve been an underdog in a lot of these big fights. Going into other people’s hometowns. I’m kind of adjusted to it.”

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ludwig Jean-Louis is used to facing challenges.

Jean-Louis purchased Cravins Soft Serve & Frozen Yogurt in May 2022, just over a year after his mother died, as a way of providing for his four siblings and grandparents.

His most recent challenge has been renovating his ice cream spot’s new space at 208 Elm St., which he hopes to open this weekend.

This past year, Jean-Louis had to look for a new location for his ice cream shop because the new owners of the building that housed the previous Cravins location at 119 Elm St. wanted to use the space for a nail salon.

LEE, Mass. — Hundreds of students gathered last week in the Lee Elementary School cafeteria for its first-ever entrepreneur fair. 

Over the last two months, the school’s fifth graders have been introduced to financial literacy and developed their own businesses based on their interests. 

The students kicked off this endeavor toward the end of April, Financial Literacy Month, with the reading of Ty Allan Jackson’s first book, “Danny Dollar,”  which he wrote while living in Pittsfield. The book’s description says it teaches kids “about finance, banking, investing, and entrepreneurship in a fun and relatable way.”

The entrepreneur and author is the founder of the Danny Dollar Entrepreneur Fair, a program that teaches children life and financial literacy skills in collaboration with schools. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ask Thomas Moody what his favorite thing to smoke is. He’ll tell you pork ribs. And his least favorite? That would be brisket, because it takes so long.

Moody wasn’t smoking anything at the Pittsfield Farmers Market on Saturday though. The pit master was dancing in front of the grill, putting the finish on wings, dishing out pulled pork and turning individual ribs to achieve a perfect bark.

This is Upstreet Smoke, a pop-up restaurant, which has also been operating nearly a year as a caterer at venues such as Shakespeare & Company and Barrington Stage Company.

Moody and his partner, Erica Shrader, chose Juneteenth to launch the business, starting with the NAACP Berkshires Juneteenth Celebration, on June 18 2023, at Pittsfield’s Durant Park. Through customers there, they landed catering gigs.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — The well-received Once Upon a Table has a reimagined menu, new lunch service on weekends and is fully staffed for the busy summer season.

Owner Avie Maloney acknowledges that staffing has been a challenge for her, just like it has been for other restaurant owners. Maloney was a server at Once Upon a Table who bought the business in April 2022. The cozy eatery is located in The Mews shopping alley off Main Street.

Maloney has staffing confidence now that she has a team led by Anand Singh, her food and beverage director, and Lucas De Silva, a new kitchen manager, to fulfill Singh’s reimagined menu for lunch and dinner.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass — The Du Bois Freedom Center announced the first event in its 2024 Reflections on Democracy salon series. The Center will commemorate Juneteenth by hosting An Evening with Congresswoman Nikema Williams who will be in conversation with the Du Bois Freedom Center’s Visiting Scholar on Democracy, Michael Blake. The June 19th event will start at 6pm at Saint James Place. This event is free, open to the public, and all are welcome at attend. Registration is required via this link.

The Center’s Reflections on Democracy is a series of educational events and public programs that ask featured scholars, elected officials, students, artists, musicians, philanthropists, and the community, to share their hopes for our democracy and reflections via this site in response to the following Du Bois passage:

“…I dream of a world of infinitive and valuable variety; not in the laws of gravity or atomic weights, but in human variety in height and weight, color and skin, hair and nose and lip. But more especially and far above and beyond this, is a realm of true freedom: in thought and dream, fantasy and imagination; in gift, aptitude, and genius—all possible manner of difference, topped with freedom of soul to do and be, and freedom of thought to give to a world and build into it, all wealth of inborn individuality. Each effort to stop this freedom of being is a blow at democracy—that real democracy which is reservoir and opportunity . . . There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even Peace.”

– Excerpt from The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History, 1947.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Keb’ Mo’, born Kevin Roosevelt Moore, on Oct. 3, 1951, in South Los Angeles, Calif., is a renowned American blues musician. A singer, guitarist and songwriter, Keb’ Mo’ blends Delta blues with folk and rock elements. The result is a distinctive style that has earned him widespread acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards.

Dalton Delan, host of The Eagle Reels vodcast, discussed the musician’s careerand what Keb’ Mo’ is planning for his upcoming June 15 sold-out gig at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

DALTON DELAN: In addition to your five Grammy Awards, you performed at the White House under President Obama. One of them was with Mick Jagger. Any memories?

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Massachusetts hasn’t had a housing plan in 40 years.

It’s finally getting one. And Berkshire housing advocates and town leaders delivered plenty of input for that plan during a visit by Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus.

Augustus and staff from his office held a well-attended listening session Wednesday at Berkshire Community College. About 100 people attended the session, including all four candidates for the 3rd Berkshire District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Tony Award nominee Jeremy O. Harris has been named the first creative director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Creative Collective, its new group leadership model. His tenure will cover the 2025 season. 

Harris’ appointment was announced Thursday afternoon by Raphael Picciarelli, Williamstown Theatre Festival’s managing director of strategy and transformation. Festival officials announced the intention to move to a shared artistic leadership model in February. 

The new artistic model splits the duties currently held by the artistic director between two managing directors and a rotating creative lead or artistic collective.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Tunnel City Coffee has found its future.

About five months after owner Paul Lovegreen announced that Tunnel City was on the market, three buyers — Jamal Stockton, Janine McCarl and Nilaykumar Patel — are poised to purchase the business.

The listing price was $995,000, and the business, including the lease rights for its three locations, sold for $850,000. The sale is set to be finalized early next week.

“Paul Lovegreen did a phenomenal job starting the business 30 years ago — it’s obvious to us it’s well-run and with little intervention will continue to run well,” Stockton said Thursday. “We want to think about areas where we can be more involved and expand the business.”

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — For Eric Quaidoo, pursuing a career in nursing came naturally.

“Growing up in my family, there was always someone in the nursing or medical field,” he said. “It’s just like second nature to me.”

Quaidoo, a senior at Taconic High School in the health technology career and technical education (CTE) program, currently works at the Wingate Residences at Melbourne Place, a senior residence and assisted living facility in Pittsfield. He spends his time caring for residents there as part of a co-op assignment with the school.

“Melbourne is more like a home — all the patients even call me their grandson sometimes,” Quaidoo said with a smile. “It’s great being able to have the ability to help them in their time of need. Just being there for them is the best part.”

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — By all accounts, to hear Christopher “Stix” Hairston’s drumming was to peer into his soul.

Aimee Gelinas has heard that rhythm since 2007. Hairston, then freshly a graduate of Taconic High School, joined her as part of the Berkshire Rhythm Keepers, an intergenerational group of local percussion students and performers. Gelinas said he had an innate ability to connect with the group’s members across a wide range of ages with his drumming.

He brought an exceptional level of skill to the craft, and a “young energy” that inspired others around him, Gelinas said. She could hardly believe the intensity that he brought at just 19 years old. Hairston came to Gelinas to expand his knowledge of African-rooted drumming.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Gina Coleman is on shuttle duty.

On a recent Tuesday morning, her band Misty Blues has a day off before a touring performance in Birmingham, Ala., so she’s driving around bandmates; some wanted to explore downtown, others wanted to play golf.

She may be Misty Blues‘ founder and lead vocalist, but she’s also its chauffeur. And percussionist. And cigar box guitarist. And main composer.

That’s in addition to two day jobs: one as head women’s rugby coach at her alma mater Williams College, the other as director of diversity, equity and inclusion at The Brien Center.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Before rapper Christopher Barton could release his latest album, “Honey Fusion Tapes,” he had to overcome his fear that no one would listen.

Barton, the North Adams barbershop owner who writes, raps and records under the handle BIGZDAKING, has certainly not been short on inspiration. A trip in 2022 to the legendary Stankonia Studios, in Atlanta, gave him enough fuel to pen an entire album, “Weekends in Atlanta.”

But after he finished recording it, he became discouraged about releasing it. He felt like he didn’t have enough of an audience to make the project successful. Barton decided not to move forward, ultimately waiting until he was able to generate some buzz for himself.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District is formalizing a partnership with an area leader in the field of cultural proficiency.

Pittsfield’s Shirley Edgerton will join the staff at Mount Greylock Regional School for a half day per week through the end of the school year and for the foreseeable future, Superintendent Jason McCandless told the School Committee on last week.

“We began working with Shirley Edgerton several years ago to address some specific circumstances at Mount Greylock Regional School,” McCandless said. “I’ve known her and respected her and consider her a mentor and someone who helped me take steps forward in understanding my own biases.

“Our administration, after a consultation, brought forward a plan that is very low cost and is dependent on Shirley thinking enough of us to alter her very busy, quote, ‘retired’ life to become part of our community.”

McCandless made the announcement Tuesday after reviewing for the committee the district’s three-year plan to continue addressing the goals of the 2019 Student Opportunity Act. 

PITTSFIELD — The Sumpter Brothers will be back in the ring together, representing Pittsfield in Pandemonium at the Palladium 3.

Quintin and Steve “The Savage” Sumpter will be fighting on the same card for the first time in almost two years, on March 23 at The Palladium in Worcester. They both won fights in Framingham in 2022, and will return to central Massachusetts next Saturday.

Steve (9-0, 7 KOs) fought in the first Pandemonium at the Palladium, beating James Perkins to claim the IBA Americas Super Middleweight Championship on Aug. 20, 2023. He was supposed to fight in the second edition of the event, but his opponent dropped out at the last minute. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — If music be the food of love, as the Bard professed, then jazz music feeds the soul. And Berkshires Jazz founder Ed Bride has made sure the people of Pittsfield never go hungry for tasty vibes and sizzling rhythms.

The annual Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, presented by Berkshires Jazz, returns with a heady mix of free and ticketed events at downtown venues from restaurants to the Colonial Theatre. Musicians over the past two decades have included local favorites, young emerging artists and veteran headliners.

The festival follows a widely-accessible format spread over 11 days from April 18-28 during nationally-recognized Jazz Appreciation Month. The festivities kick-off Thursday, April 18 with an open-jam session at Hot Plate Brewing Co. On Friday, April 19, the always-popular Jazz Crawl returns, bringing jazz enthusiasts to a variety of venues. A schedule can be found at berkshiresjazz.org. A swing dance with the Wandering Dance Society follows on Saturday, April 20 at Proprietor’s Lodge. Lessons by Jason Fenton begin at 6 p.m., with the dance floor opening at 7 p.m. Jazz brunches will be held at Dottie’s, 10 a.m. to noon, with Brian Hailes on April 21 and Natalia Bernal and Jason Ennis on April 28.

STOCKBRIDGE — On her first day working at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, in the summer of 2019, Eset Rose stood by a statue of Ganesha, the Hindu God of beginnings.

“Why did you bring me here?” she says she called out, a couple hundred feet from the office where, at 39, she had her first 9–to–5  job.

As a Black woman — Rose calls herself “a Jewmaican” — used to the diversity of the music industry, she was hyperaware of being in a largely white space. In another life, Rose had been Alicia Keys’ manager and creative director, as well as the president of her production company AK Worldwide. Why, she wondered, had she applied to be director of luminary programming at a wellness retreat center in Western Massachusetts?