Asbury Park's African-American Music Legacy Honored in LIGHT OF DAY WINTERFEST Exhibit

An historical one-of-a-kind gallery exhibit highlighting the legacy of Asbury Park's West Side African-American music scene - from Count Basie to Billy Brown - has opened at Heaven Art Gallery, 721 Cookman Ave., as part of Light of Day Foundation's LIGHT OF DAY WINTERFEST 2015.

Long before Asbury Park became known for rock music, the city's African American community rocked the West Side along Springwood Avenue, pioneering the city's sounds of jazz, gospel and rhythm & blues between 1910 and 1970. Artists like Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, David Sancious and Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez have mentioned the influence the West Side artists had on the rock musicians who came of age in Asbury Park in the 1960s and 1970s.

Presented by the Asbury Park Historical Society and Classic Urban Harmony LLC, in conjunction with the Light of Day Foundation and Monmouth University Center for the Arts, the exhibit contains scores of rare photographs, plus phonograph records, posters, sheet music, and other memorabilia from Asbury Park's West Side. It covers jazz, gospel and R&B music, and also highlights black radio, record labels, record stores and Springwood Avenue nightclubs and theaters.

"This is the first, and probably only, exhibit of its kind ever presented to the public," says Historical Society President Don Stine, "and I urge everyone to stop by and see an important part of Asbury Park's rich musical heritage that is often overlooked."

Music historians Charlie and Pam Horner of the Asbury Park Historical Society, who designed and assembled the exhibit, point out that the West Side music scene from 1910 to 1970 laid the groundwork as a major influence on Asbury's rock music of the 1970s and beyond.

"Springwood Avenue was the place to go for the area's hippest, cutting edge music," says Horner. "From jazz to R&B and their roots in gospel music, this 10-block area had it all. West Side music touched the lives of Count Basie and Duke Ellington as well as Lenny Welch, Billy Brown and Clarence Clemons. Springwood Avenue clubs and musicians introduced black music to countless shore area performers."

The exhibit is open only during Light of Day Week in the city, now through Jan. 19 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), at Heaven Art Gallery. Gallery hours are Sunday, Monday and Thursday, from noon to 5 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. The gallery is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Following the exhibit's close in Asbury Park, it will be expanded even further and moved to Monmouth University's Pollak Gallery on the university's campus at 400 Cedar Ave., West Long Branch, it can be viewed for the entire month of February for Black History Month. The expanded exhibit will also include vintage musical instruments and posters.

The Light Of Day Foundation (www.lightofday.org) funds research into Parkinson's disease and related neuromuscular disorders. The foundation's annual concert series brings thousands of music fans from around the world to Asbury Park.

For more information go to www.classicurbanharmony.net or www.aphistoricalsociety.org.