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Once the vibrant hub for the City’s African American community, Springwood Avenue was lined with music venues and African American-owned businesses. Between 1910 and 1970 — long before Asbury Park became known for rock music — the city’s African American community rocked the sounds of jazz, gospel, and rhythm and blues along Springwood Avenue.

And while noted spots like the Orchid Lounge may be long gone, the sounds and stories that flowed from them linger in the community’s collective memory. Music greats like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie were heard in venues throughout a city that helped cultivate the local sound, which often played out on front porches and in backyards.

In homage to that history, the Asbury Park Public Library Board of Trustees has announced the launch of its African American Music Heritage Project.

“This project [will] chronicle the absolutely amazingly rich and glorious past of Asbury Park’s African American musical and cultural heritage,” said Tyrone Laws, a local historian and Kwest For Truth founder, in a written statement. “The multiplicity of stories yet to be told and the reasons behind them are worthy of any effort to capture and record them for posterity. This noble undertaking is but one more facet in a long and enduring effort to create an accurate portrayal of the African American experience in Asbury Park.”

The community-driven initiative is being funded by a $13,800 project grant from the NJ Historical Commission [NJHC], trustee member Jennifer Souder said. They will work in partnership with the municipality, neighborhood and youth historians, the Asbury Park Historical Society, Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music, Classic Urban Harmony, the Proper Foundation, and the Asbury Park School District, to name a few.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to share the significance and influence of the Springwood Avenue corridor to the music scene in Asbury Park and surrounding communities, while preserving the local cultural history of African American music for future generations,” Councilwoman Yvonne Clayton said in a written statement.

The project was born out of the two-day January 2017 Creative Asbury Park Call to Collaboration by Creative New Jersey. Its goals include building on existing resources and developing a research report and oral histories,” Souder said.

“There are many positive things to point to in Asbury Park but the profound impacts of systematic racism remain,” Souder said. “This project will give voice to the stories of the African American community, told by the community, and serve as a resource for the City’s cultural initiatives; heritage trail, interpretive elements, etc.”

The Asbury Park Public Library is located at 500 First Ave. For more information, visit asburyparklibrary.org.

[Photos courtesy of AP Historical Society include, from top down: Billy Brown and Bruce Springsteen at the Wonder Bar on April 3, 2011; Asbury Park’s Bobby Thomas [right] with the Orioles; and Asbury Park’s early vocal harmony group The Vibranaires.]

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