The VOMA basement begins to fill with jazz fans and their preferred beverages within minutes of opening Jan. 20. On this night the occasion is another installment of the Cambria City music venue's recurring jazz series. The people are there to hear the Pittsburgh-based Mark Perna Trio, starring Perna on upright bass, Kevin Moore on keys and Mark Weakland on drums.

And, perhaps most of all, they're there for Frank Filia, who's entertaining the audience with quips and conversation long before he takes the stage. “He's got, to me, the best phrasing and timing of almost anyone I've ever heard in Johnstown — that unexplainable rhythmn,” says fan Bob Horowitz, who first heard Filia about a decade ago.