Light of Day Winterfest 24
Annual Music Festival Raises Funds for Parkinson's, ALS, and PSP
Light of Day Winterfest 24 has begun.
Founded by Bob Benjamin, the Light of Day Foundation organizes the event each year since 1998, raising funds and awareness for Parkinson’s disease, Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Through Sunday, January 19, dozens of artists at as many as nineteen venues in Asbury Park, Red Bank, and New York will perform from noon to midnight and beyond. This year, returning Light of Day veterans include Willie Nile and Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers. (Jesse Malin is still recovering and will not be returning this year. Bruce Springsteen often shows up unannounced.)
Last night, I attended Wonder Jam Deluxe at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park. Shore staple Sandy Mack has hosted a series of “jam concerts” with a rotating roster of bandmates and support acts over the years, including at the Wonder Bar. (Currently, he has weekly Wednesday and Sunday residencies at The Asbury and Salty’s Beach Bar in Lake Como, respectively.) He is participating in a blues festival in Memphis, so Stu Coogan of 90.5 The Night hosted in his place, introducing some of Mack’s frequent collaborators and guests.
While my experience attending these events is limited (in part due to my work schedule last year and in part due to over a decade spent on the other coast), Wonder Jam Deluxe struck me as representative of the entire festival in multiple respects. It was diverse in the most relevant aspect of diversity—diversity of sounds, styles, instrumentation, even generation (artists’ ages ranged from teen to Baby Boomer and beyond). There were two stages; the venue’s main stage was the “electric stage” while a temporary stage to the right served as the “acoustic stage”. Rotating between stages, artists played fifteen-minute sets on the acoustic stage while larger ensembles played forty-five minute sets on the electric stage. Carlotta Schmidt, a confident young artist with a strong voice (Mack describes her as “sixteen going on timeless”), opened the festivities at 7:15. It was pushing midnight when Abandoned Outcasts took the stage.
Other highlights included local favorites Waiting on Mongo on the electric stage, who described themselves as funk. The acoustic stage featured Niki Arrowsmith and Andy Dreamos of pensive, ethereal folk band Gaia Raga; Arrowsmith accompanied her voice with what I think was a mandolin while Dreamos played sitar and saxophone. Later, Gab Cinque and Fran O’Brien of The Gab Cinque Band played five stellar originals, including “What I Need” and “Structures” from last year’s EP Highway Junkie. Three will hopefully be on their forthcoming longplayer scheduled for summer release. I’ve tried to do justice to Cinque and O’Brien with words, but they must be seen and heard.
Tonight, The Weeklings, Grushecky, Dramarama, et. al. will play at the annual Asbury Angels induction ceremony at The Stone Pony, honoring shore musicians no longer living. Ray Dahrouge will be inducted. On Saturday, Max Weinberg’s Jukebox will headline Bob’s Birthday Bash at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank. Earlier in the day, Jarod Clemons & The Late Nights, Stormin’ Norman Seldin, Joe Bonanno, Bocciaglupe & The Bad Boys, Stringbean & Richard Blackwell, and others will feature at Asbury Blues at The Wonder Bar. (Seldin was Clarence Clemons’s boss, and the two were playing at The Wonder Bar circa Labor Day Weekend 1971 the night Clemons met a certain other boss, who was playing at The Student Prince nearby.) Sunday afternoon, Gab and Fran will return to the Wonder Bar with the full band for Cover Me, an event of artists paying homage to influences. Gab, Fran, and company will be playing the music of Heart. These are a few of the many simultaneous events scheduled throughout the weekend.
The website has many more details; an app is available which has the most up-to-date schedules, set times, etc.
While culture continues to wane outside of Monmouth County, New Jersey, the county’s music scene endures and waxes. Light of Day Winterfest 24 is as apposite an occasion as any to experience it. It is certainly a welcome respite from mid-winter’s frigid ennui.