via The Reading Eagle –

The 700 block of Penn Street was in full swing Friday night.

While Halestorm rocked Santander Arena, vocal-group icons Take 6 and the Manhattan Transfer joined forces in the grand ballroom of the recently opened DoubleTree by Hilton hotel.”I don’t know what that rock thing is across the street but y’all came to the good show,” joked Take 6 member Alvin Chea.

The show, billed as The Summit, acted as the opening night kickoff of the 26th annual Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest.The two long-running collectives spent about half of the 100-minute set onstage together, with segments featuring each group by itself interspersed throughout the show. The Summit also included some cross-pollination, with members of one group performing with members from the other.The show kicked off with an extended take on the Manhattan Transfer’s “That’s Killer Joe,” a song much more sprightly and swinging than its title implies. The groups set the tone for the evening, keeping the singing tight but the stage presence loose. At one point, members of each group engaged in a mock upright-bass battle with their mouths.During their time alone onstage, the Manhattan Transfer plied their stock-in-trade: vocalese, a style in which words are added to what was originally an instrumental song.It can take a bit of time getting used to hearing vocalists singing the instrumental runs of Weather Report’s infectious fusion classic “Birdland” and Miles Davis’s darkly funky “Tutu,” but they are quite good at it.During the Transfer’s take on Clifford Brown and Max Roach’s “Joy Spring,” Trist Curless mimed playing Harold Land’s saxophone solo while he sang it.The group also offered more traditional covers of songs like the Young Rascals’ “Groovin'” and the Ad Libs’ “The Boy from New York City,” which became an unexpected top 10 pop hit for the group in 1981.Take 6 performed almost entirely a capella, and for good reason. Instruments would have only cluttered things up.Having performed together for nearly 30 years, the sextet members are as comfortable inside their vocal arrangements as they would be in an old pair of jeans.Take 6’s sound is a mix of old and new, some gospel, some jazz, some hip-hop. The group got the crowd clapping and singing along with Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” then wowed them with Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed,” a song aided by tender keyboards and nylon-string guitar.Midway through the show, the Transfer’s Janis Siegel and Cheryl Bentyne teamed with Take 6’s Claude McKnight and Mark Kibble.”This is a song that Mark and I started listening to, what, probably ,” McKnight started.”Don’t say you were in grade school,” Bentyne warned. “Ouch.””But we grew up with it,” Kibble protested.Their a capella take on “A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square,” a standard with which the Transfer had a hit in the 1980s, drew one of the loudest ovations of the evening.The Summit was the first Jazz Fest event at the DoubleTree, which opened in December.Considering General Manager Craig Poole spent more than 15 years managing a jazz club in Pittsburgh, it’s a safe bet that the downtown hotel shows will continue.The maiden performance couldn’t have gone much better. The concert was packed as were the restaurants in the hotel before the show. Poole, and city and county officials, should feel optimistic. – See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/life/article/concert-review-manhattan-transfer-take-6-give-voice-to-jazz-fest#sthash.VUmGgEV2.dpuf