Next year’s Jazz Fest to return to its roots
Some irked by presence of rock, blues, folk music in recent years
The Asbury Park Jazz Festival celebrated its 24th anniversary this year — but some felt the genre the event is known for was under-represented. Officials say next year’s event will feature more jazz.
The June 30 and July 1 festival started in 1989 as a gathering of local jazz musicians and has since grown into a two-day event held in Sunset Park. Organizers this year scheduled 15 bands to play over the course of two days. Next year’s Jazz Festival will be the event’s 25th anniversary.
City resident Teretha Jones expressed disappointment at the July 11 council meeting over the lack of jazz music at the festival.
“I’ve been at every Jazz Festival since its inception,” she said. “Only two acts [this year] were actually jazz. Folks were turned off by the rock and roll, folk and blues.”
City officials have already discussed this issue, city manager Terence Reidy said at the meeting.
“I was there and I heard the music,” Reidy said. “There was a minimum amount of the jazz genre. That is something that’s not going to be repeated.”
Next year’s 25th anniversary event “is definitely going to be a jazz festival with a concentration on jazz,” Reidy said in a phone interview today. It is still too soon to tell who will be running next year’s event, though, he said.
“It’s in the absolute beginning stages, but it will be special,” he added.
The Jazz Festival this year was run jointly by the city and local marketing firm the Passion Group. Previously, Rue Events orchestrated the festival.
Passion Group hired the Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Foundation to curate the music selection this year. The foundation produces several jazz or blues music festivals each year, in municipalities like Red Bank, Point Pleasant and Long Branch.
The Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Foundation’s past president and executive board member Dennis Eschbach, of Middletown, said the group’s intention was to provide a variety of musical genres, including jazz, blues, zydeco and more.
“This festival was not purely jazz,” he said. “Maybe it was 20 years ago … We thought we might mix it up so we’d get a lot of people who like different kinds of music.”
Also, the perceived lack of jazz music may be due to one of the jazz bands having cancelled due to an illness, he said.
“I thought we had a great lineup,” he said. “It was definitely minus one jazz band. But for us to do strictly all-jazz, I don’t think it’s been like that for years.”
