It’s September. The trees are losing their leaves. The temperature is dropping. The season of enjoying outdoor music performances is wrapping up. And we are reluctantly stashing our beach chairs in the garage for another year.
But wait! Just when you thought it was time to make the summer-to-fall transition, along comes four fabulous days of FREE MUSIC in five Central New Jersey towns – Edison, Metuchen, New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, and Woodbridge – to delight your ears and lift your spirits.
The idea for the festival was the result of an aha moment among the organizers – Edison’s Mayor and Council, Perth Amboy Artworks, New Brunswick Jazz Project, Woodbridge Arts, Metuchen Arts Council, and Friends of Metuchen Arts.
“We had discussed doing something together,” Bill Brandenburg of Woodbridge said, “and somewhere in the conversation the idea of a jazz festival came up.”
The first-ever Middlesex County Jazz Festival will kick off at Papaianni Park in Edison on September 28, followed on September 29 by an evening concert at the Historic Perth Amboy Ferry Slip. Saturday will offer two shows – an afternoon concert on Livingston Avenue in front of the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center (NBPAC) and an evening show on Halsey Street at the Metuchen Station Lot 6. The festival will come to a close on Sunday at Parker Press Park on Rahway Avenue in Woodbridge.