RED BANK: TWO FALL FESTIVALS? MAYBE…

The annual Guinness Oyster Fest in September could be followed just three weeks later by the International Beer, Wine & Food Fest, usually held in April. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot topic red bank nj With a calendar decimated by the COVID-19 crisis, Red Bank appears to be in for an unusually quiet summer.

But as summer edges into autumn, two of the town’s largest annual food festivals could occur within three weeks of one another, redbankgreen has learned.

Here’s a lookahead at the pandemic’s impacts on the summer calendar.

May 29, 2020 - 11:00 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: SUMMER JAZZ SERIES RETURNS

Saxman smoothie Dave Koz joins funky bassmaster Larry Graham for a summit of musical styles as the Count Basie Theatre inaugurates its Summer jazz Fest series this Wednesday.

One’s a platinum-plated instrumentalist whose smooth stylings have seen him top the charts as a bandleader and make beautiful music with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Stevie Nicks. The other’s a pioneer of slapping/thumping funk bass technique who wowed the crowd at Woodstock, climbed the Billboard R&B charts and took his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Together on the road this summer, Dave Koz and Larry Graham are living proof that jazz is a big tent, and when the co-headliners roll into Red Bank this Wednesday, they’ll be sounding the keynote to the 2017 Summer Jazz Fest schedule at the Count Basie Theatre.

July 24, 2017 - 7:15 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: JAZZ IN JULY AND BEYOND

Trumpeter Warren Vaché sounds the keynote for a new series of Summer Jazz Cafe events at Two River Theater this weekend. Keith Marks, below parks it at Riverside Gardens for the first in A slate of free outdoor jazz concerts Thursday night.

Although it keeps a year-round beat that includes December’s annual Sinatra Birthday Bash, the spring series of Talkin’ Jazz lectures and the ongoing sessions of the Jazz Arts Academy, summertime means the livin’ is also busy for the Jazz Arts Project, the nonprofit arts organization based here in Red Bank, the borough that gave the world Count Basie (to say nothing of the late and legendary Johnny Jazz).

It’s a flurry of activity that really hits home in this first full week of July, as Jazz Arts and artistic director Joe “Mooche” Muccioli introduce a new schedule for a seasonal signifier — the celebrated Summer Jazz Café at Two River Theater — along with the return of a relatively recent warm-weather diversion: the free series of Jazz in the Park concerts at Riverside Gardens Park.

July 6, 2016 - 11:00 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: WRAPPING UP A JAZZY JULY

Layonne Holmes leads the New Standard Jazz Ensemble in a Thursday local debut at Riverside Gardens. Trumpeter Jon Faddis plays the Two River Theater’s Summer Jazz Café Friday.

Whether you’re a serious jazz aficionado – you know, the kind who hears a record and can name the session date, all of the players, and what they had for lunch – or simply one who digs all that a sophisticatedly swinging set does to the general mood, you’ve got to appreciate the fact that it’s been a July to remember, jazzwise, in Red Bank.

This weekend sees the final entry in the 2015 Summer Jazz Café series at Two River Theater, while the music plays on at Riverside Gardens during the free Thursday night slate of Jazz in the Park concerts; all of it programmed by borough-based Jazz Arts Project and artistic director Joe “Mooche” Muccioli.

July 29, 2015 - 6:00 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: SLICES OF PIE AND PIZZARELLI

Miss Sherri Ehrlich displays her grown-up pop side in the park as Sherri Pie plays a Thursday night freebie at Riverside Gardens. Guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli joins Ed Laub at Two River Theater’s Summer Jazz Café Friday and Saturday .

A well known “kindie-rocker” of the Greater Red Bank Green shows her grownup pop chops during an up-past-bedtime concert, and a granddaddy of the Jersey jazz scene displays the stuff that’s made him a cross-generational favorite as Red Bank’s resolutely jazzy July continues at Riverside Gardens Park and Two River Theater, brought you by Joe “Mooche” Muccioli and the borough-based Jazz Arts Project.

July 22, 2015 - 5:37 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: LADIES SING THE JAZZ

Eryn Shewell, above, leads the Whiskey Devils to the water at Riverside Gardens Thursday night. Charenee Wade, below, channels the late great “Lady Day” Billie Holiday Friday and Saturday at Two River Theater’s Summer Jazz Cafe.

With a spot-on tribute to an iconic diva of Jazz’s golden age, and a look at one of the Shore area’s most versatile vocal stylists, it’s all about the chanteuse this week in Red Bank.

Beginning Thursday night, a three-night interlude of cool jazz sounds wafts into Riverside Gardens Park and the Two River Theater, programmed by borough-based Jazz Arts Project and its co-founding father/artistic director Joe “Mooche” Muccioli.

July 15, 2015 - 5:00 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: JAZZ IS ALIVE AND KICKING

Saxman Bruce Williams kicks off a summer schedule of free Jazz in the Park sessions Thursday night at Riverside Gardens… while Friday and Saturday find Café-society crooner Tony DeSare playing a two night stand at Two River Theater.

Like, who says Jazz is a moribund museum piece, fit more for starchy concert-hall settings than those people’s-choice settings that made it what it is? Certainly not the Red Bank-based Jazz Arts Project, an organization that keeps a porchlight burning in the town that’s gifted the world with Count Basie, Al Wright, and the immortal Johnny Jazz.

Now in its 10th year of operation, the nonprofit overseen by artistic director Joe “Mooche” Muccioli has stepped up its game – with the return of the celebrated Summer Jazz Cafe series, an expanded slate of Jazz Arts Academy offerings, and (for the first time in the event’s long-running history) a schedule of free Jazz in the Park concerts that’s been programmed in full by Mooche and company.

July 8, 2015 - 9:37 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: NOW YOU’RE COOKIN’ WITH SHERRI

Kindie-rock favorite Sherri Ehrlich sings for grownups in an encore appearance at Thursday’s Jazz in the Park series at Riverside Gardens. (Photo by Bobbie Kingsley)

A generation of kids knows her as Miss Sherri: a frequent presence at family-friendly festivals and all-ages venues around the greater Green as the top-hatted ringleader to the various parrots, pups, gators and girl-group giraffes that comprise the Little Animal Band.

But Sherri Ehrlich has a post-bedtime gig that finds the onetime proprietor of Red Bank’s Honey Child Music moonlighting as a whole ‘nother musical creature known as Sherri Pie.

August 12, 2014 - 10:28 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: NOW YOU HAS JAZZ

Vocalist Maggie Worsdale fronts the Sweet Whiskey Band in a set of “Songs Under the Influence,” Friday and Saturday at Two River Theater. (photo by Roberto Muolo)

April may be National Jazz Appreciation Month — a fact driven home locally and yearly by Joe Muccioli‘s Talkin’ Jazz series at the Count Basie Theatre — but things really heat up jazzwise in this Basie-birthing borough during the month of July, an interlude during which several weekends’ worth of Summer Jazz cafe events at Two River Theater are keynoted by open-air Thursdays at Riverside Gardens’ Jazz in the Park series.

The 2014 slate of outdoor concerts (presented by Red Bank Parks and Recreation Department) continues on the evening of July 24 in a classically cool vein, when drummer Darwin B. Oden and his combo return to the banks of the Navesink for some improvisatory, exploratory sets ‘neath the setting sun and stars. The music kicks in at 7:30 pm (weather permitting; call Parks and Rec at 732-530-2782 for day-of-show updates); bring lawn chairs or blankets, and dress comfy casual — then go home, get dressed for a sophisticated night on the town, and reconvene at Two River for an extra special Friday and Saturday session.

July 23, 2014 - 12:00 pm | Comments ()

RED BANK: A RIVER’S 11 IN THE PARK

The eleven-piece showband Funktion 11 crowds the stage of Riverside Gardens Thursday evening as the Jazz in the Park series continues.

Call them a showband — the kind that can rock the roof off any wedding, corporate event or casino lounge. The kind that makes a big sound just by standing there; a band with so many people in it, they don’t even have a name to describe what comes after nonet and dectet.

When Funktion 11 takes the portable stage at Riverside Gardens in Red Bank this Thursday night, it will bring its in-your-face mix of soul classics, Motown milestones and vintage hits (by big horny rock bands like the Ides of March) back to the banks of the Navesink, as the latest in the 2014 Jazz in the Park series.

July 14, 2014 - 12:00 pm | Comments ()

RED BANK: GOOD MORNING, GREEN…

Sunrise on our beautiful Navesink River Thursday, as seen from the Navesink River Rowing Club on Maple Avenue.

Expect a lovely day today, says the Weather Channel: partly sunny, temps in the mid-70s and dropping to the low 50s tonight.

Could be a perfect night for the the Nick Clemons Band show at Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank, overlooking you-know-which river. Show starts at 7 p.m. (Click to enlarge)

September 5, 2013 - 6:48 am | Comments ()

RED BANK: TALKIN’ HOT JAZZ IN JULY

He plays seashells by the seashore: trombonist and seashellist Steve Turre brings his quintet to the Two River Theater on Friday and Saturday.

By TOM CHESEK

Whoever coined the phrase “Le Jazz Hot” might well have been thinking of the muddy, muggy banks of the Navesink in the months of July and August, as the borough that birthed Count Basie tends to fill its superheated summer days and trez-cool nights with the sorts of sounds that honor the legacy of the legendary Kid from Red Bank.

The musical fireworks start Thursday, when the waterfront walkways of Riverside Gardens reverb with the first of this year’s open-air Jazz in the Park junkets. Then, on Friday and Saturday, the Marion Huber room at Two River Theater is transformed once more into a cool cavern of candlelit tables, classic coffeehouse vibes and close-up concert dynamics when the series known as Summer Jazz Café turns that “black box” space into the area’s best-kept-secret nightspot.

July 10, 2013 - 8:48 am | Comments ()