Jazz Fest heads back to Sunset Park for 25th year
Festival originator Dina Parker Todd retakes the helm as event organizer
After a year hiatus, the Asbury Park Jazz Festival will be back in the city this June.
Jazz Fest originator Dina Parker Todd is heading up this year’s event, which marks the 25th year the festival will be held in Asbury Park.
The festival is set for June 28 and 29. It will be a mixture of jazz, blues and gospel music from noon to 8 p.m. in Sunset Park both days.
“We just got final approval from the city and are looking for sponsorship,” Parker Todd said.
Once sponsorship is secured, organizers will move onto secure well-known headliner for the 25th anniversary event. Previous talent to grace the festival main includes legendary artists Noel Pointer, Tal Farlow, Bob Baldwin, Regina Carter, Jimmy McGriff, Bud Williams and Dave Valentine, among others, she said.
Tasked with bringing the tourism industry back to Asbury Park by former City Manager Samuel Addeo, then city-administrator Parker Todd founded the original festival in 1989, she said.
“In ’89 the city was pretty vacant,” she said. “Cookman Avenue was not like it is today, there were many vacant buildings and the boardwalk needed repair. People bypassed Asbury for Belmar, Point Pleasant, Atlantic City.”
She took over the city’s special events department and started work to come up with ideas that brought people back to Asbury Park, starting with the “Jazz in the Parks” series, the first iteration of what would later morph into the yearly festival. The four-day event spread over consecutive Saturdays in June saw numerous jazz bands set up and play in the city’s different parks.
The rest is history.
“I’m absolutely elated,” said Mayor Myra Campbell of Parker Todd’s return to head-up the event. “She built it over the years to become an exciting, successful event enjoyed by people from all around.”
The festival is a rain or shine event, moving to the city’s concert halls, Convention Hall and Paramount Theaters located on the beachfront, if it rains.
[Photo at top of Rev. George Searight & the Royal Priesthood playing at a previous festival provided by Dina Parker Todd.]
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