The Jersey Shore before: Memories of Asbury Park

By Juana Bimba

 I used to be one of those women who turns on the radio and dances around by herself, but now I do it only rarely; music nowadays is so stilted, so shrill, so repetitious, it leaves me cold. Son, salsa,

Guaguancó, bolero—the old Latin standards—are no longer heard at house parties, over the radio, or
in clubs. Instead, Deejays play some kind of repetitive noise and call it Latin music.
As for classic rock or blues—the other half of my musical upbringing—those, too, are virtually
nonexistent now, replaced by heavy metal and hip hop. Again,so much noise to my ears.

 I used to think The Day the Music Died had finally arrived, until a summer junket changed my mind.

A couple of years ago, when I first stepped off the bus in Asbury Park, New Jersey, it was cold. In July! I had to buy a hoody at a boardwalk, faded and splintered, which had surely seen better days.
The food was awful and overpriced. The streets were full of potholes. The beaches were gray and pebbly, battered by frigid, savage waves—and the city charged for use of those pathetic  beaches.

I couldn’t believe it. Asbury Park is part of the famed Jersey Shore,a spot widely favored by New
Yorkers who want a quick, nearby escape from the big city without breaking the piggy bank. What I
was seeing was definitely not what I’d expected.

I didn’ know that I’d wake up to the town’s charm by degrees.

First, there’s the sheer vibrancy and joy of the place. By noon, all those ugly, pebbly beaches are covered in multicolored umbrellas, like balloons at a summer party. People don’t swim, but they do stumble around happily, trying to look athletic as they play drunken ball in the sand. Folks crowd the
boardwalk, shopping, shouting, eating, jostling for space at outdoor bars, blaring radio station booths and greasy concession stands. It’s Honky Tonk Heaven.

If  you’re lucky, you’ll catch a seaside social  event: attendants halt boardwalk traffic, parting the
scruffy crowd, suspense hangs in mid-air, People bitch, what’s going on here? Then the bride and her father emerge majestically from a nearby warehouse and cross over into the sand, where groom,
priest and guests await at a makeshift altar. The rabble cheers and claps, inconvenience forgiven.
Attendants step aside, the wedding proceeds, boardwalk traffic resumes. The low- rent magic is over, for the moment.

At the town next door there’s redemption, if you want it. Ocean Grove, with its clapboard cathedral, Victorian mansions and a huge wooden cross on the beach, is run by Methodists who play holy folk songs on the boardwalk, live in tiny revival tents and forbid any alcohol consumption within
city limits. Locals call it “Ocean Grave”.

Nice place to visit, but it’s always nicer to return to Asbury Park, where the booze flows freely and—o sweet surprise—live, heathen music pours out of every hole-in-the wall you pass. So much unheralded talent in one tiny place. It reminded me of  the after -hours clubs I’d visited years ago in Miami, where the boatlift people sang their hearts out for each other, probably aware that nobody else would ever hear them or admire them.

That Miami after hours was the real thing, and so was the Asbury Park I visited.

I heard no lounge acts there; no hip hop, heavy metal, bachata or Reggaetón, no phoney baloney
hymns; instead, skilled musicians cranked out nonstop, solid, classic rock and blues, the kind that proclaims its own brash, raw, undying existence with every thump of the bass, the kind that
envelops you head to toe and transports you to a different time. I even heard some salsa—the REAL stuff, not what passes for Latin music these days.

All of a sudden, for minutes at a time, I was eighteen again. That’s what Asbury Park did for me on that cold weekend in July, before COVID came along and made a fond memory of the entire Jersey shore.