In 2024, just last month, the New Jersey Hall of Fame at American Dream on Route #3 in East Rutherford started hosting a special exhibit honoring Celia Cruz's powerful voice, colorful costumes and vibrant personality. It will stay open throughout November as an extension of America’s Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15).

Leave it to Bergen County visionary Kramer to amass a tribute to author/poet Edgar Allen Poe [1809-1849]. On October 18, his Shimmy-Disc record label will release Poe: To One In Paradise, dedicated to producer Hal Wilner [1956-2020].

There once was a band called Detention from the New Brunswick area. They were nasty. They were hardcore. Left For Dead Records, the punk reissue label, will release Dead Rock’n’Rollers on Halloween, comprised of singles plus tracks from their self-titled 1985 debut and unreleased material recorded in Roselle Park.

Patrons of Edison’s Expo Center will shriek in terror and delight as the Darkside New Jersey Art & Oddities Market—brought to you by the Trenton Punk Rock Market—will raise the hairs on your arm with its combo of the weird, odd, curious and macabre.

On March 26, 2025, Carnegie Hall will host “People Have The Power:  A Celebration of Patti Smith” with 20 artists yet to be named. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit various music education programs in the tri-state area. Tickets will go on sale October 22 at the Carnegie Hall website.

German funk/jazz label Leopard Records has released today Buddy and Biscuit, the first tribute ever to the great ‘60s drummer-composer-guitarist-vocalist-producer and all-around wild man rock star Buddy Miles [1947-2008], from Biscuit Rouse [Newark]. Rouse used to drum for Lauryn Hill [East Orange]. He’s currently in a band called Screaming Headless Torsos and is also in Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid’s Band Of Gypsys Revisited.

With a new single (“Exit Plan”) and a debut album, Nothing Lasts Forever, Lolitslea, raised in Ocean County’s Point Pleasant, knows a little bit more about life than just the beach. She can fascinate within minutes. “`Exit Plan,’” she says, “runs circles around the themes of liminal spaces, the backrooms, and realizing life will never be what it was back in 2008, when my biggest regret was selling my Nintendo DS to a local pawn shop.”

Remember Action Park in Vernon? It opened in ’78 and closed in ’96 after numerous deaths and injuries. In 2014, it re-opened but less than two years later it had to close to close down again after more deaths and injuries. Now, inspired by the trauma that the park caused, a new horror film, Traction Park Massacre, from Terror Twins LLC, will be the subject of a panel, moderated by Michael Gingold of Fangoria magazine, at Comic Con ’24 (October 17 at the Javits Center in New York City at 6:30 p.m.)

Look across the Hudson River and you can see the dramatic skyline of Manhattan from a town in New Jersey’s Hudson County called West New York. You might also be able to hear the all-instrumental jazz-rock fusion band U.L.T.R.A. S as it’s where these Jersey Boys rehearse. Their name is an acronym for Universe Less Traveled Reveals Authentic Self.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark has announced the dates at various venues for the 13^th annual James Moody Jazz Festival, happening this year from November 7 to 14.

The Madison Community Arts Center—10 Kings Road—will be the venue for a special October 6 3:00 Sunday afternoon screening of Swingin’ with Frank & Bing, a new documentary about the life and art of composer Jimmy Van Heusen.

He may reside in Maplewood but guitarist Stephane Wrembel is all about New Orleans and Paris as he brings his exquisite nonet to New York City on October 3 at Le Poisson Rouge. Wrembel has singlehandedly kept the Gypsy Jazz tradition of Django Reinhardt alive but fused it with Louisiana love.

Whether Lenny White is the greatest living drummer or not is a Rubik’s Cube of a debate. The Teaneck resident helped pioneer the advent of jazz-rock fusion in the 1970s in Chick Corea’s Return To Forever with Jersey City’s Al Di Meola. His latest project is All In Good Time (ZOHO Records) by Monika Herzig’s Sheroes where he produces seven females on 10 tracks, one of which is a surprising cover of Beyonce’s 2011 “Run The World.”

Longtime Jersey Jazz columnist/downbeat editor/author/historian Dan Morgenstern passed away from heart failure September 7 in New York City at the age of 94. A Jersey City resident, he was named Director of Jazz Studies at Rutgers-Newark in 1976 and amassed the world’s largest collection of jazz documents, recordings and memorabilia in his dogged effort to keep jazz history alive.

It happened in Tennessee. Jon Bon Jovi, 62, in the middle of a photo shoot on a Nashville bridge, notices, out of the corner of his eye, a woman seemingly going to commit suicide by standing on the other side of the bridge looking down.

It’s been 31 years and counting for Philly radio station WXPN and its popular XPoNential Music Festival, happening this year in Camden on two stages at Wiggins Park September 20, 21 and 22. Between the music, the food, face-painting, tattooing and interactive art projects, there will be plenty to do, see, eat and hear.

The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music (BSACAM) has announced September 28 as the date for a special evening with Grammy Award-winning film editor/director Thom Zimny in celebration of Bruce’s 75^th birthday. The 7:30 p.m. event will be held in Pollak Theatre on the campus of Monmouth University in West Long Branch.

Come see Texas blues-band The Fabulous Thunderbirds in Clark this Saturday September 14. The six-hour Union County Fall Festival is free. Plus, The Weight Band will perform the music of The Band and Dead On Live will be Grateful.

Dionne Warwick, 83, will be honored September 22 at the inaugural New Jersey Arts Icon Gala at an event called “What The World Needs Now:  A Celebration Of Dionne Warwick.” All proceeds from the event—held at the Bell Theater in Holmdel—will benefit the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal and the Bell Theater Cultural Arts and Education Programs.

Known for her iconic performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival, Melanie [Long Branch] once recorded a cover version of “Rag Doll” by The Four Seasons [Newark] in 1984. The Fabulous Courettes, the duo from Brazil and Denmark, have taken Melanie’s cover and made a monster out of it that should fire-breathe your speakers into oblivion.