Born August 21, 1904 and raised at 229 Mechanic Street in Red Bank, William James “Count” Basie was one of America’s first global superstars. As a teenage maintenance worker at Red Bank’s Palace Theater, Basie would sweep floors between screenings — until one day, he was asked to sit in for the silent movie house’s accompanying pianist, who had fallen ill. The rest, they say, is history — Basie would move to New York and then St. Louis to hone his jazz chops and eventually step onto the world stage, performing for audiences that would one day include Queen Elizabeth II and President John F. Kennedy. Back home, friends still called him Bill, including the times he’d return to raise money for various causes. On April 20, 1983, Basie came home to raise funds for Red Bank’s AME Zion Church, before a sold-out audience of longtime friends, neighbors and fellow musicians.

It would be his final performance.

In 1984, just months before his passing, he agreed to allow our building to be named in his honor. Today, the Count Basie Center for the Arts celebrates not only ‘The Kid From Red Bank,’ but all that falls into the pantheon of community and the performing arts.

Hailing from just up the Parkway in Sayreville, Jon Bon Jovi is an international rock star, actor, and philanthropist. With nearly 150 million album sales to his credit, Jon Bon Jovi has truly seen a million faces — and many of them were rocked here at the Basie Center. In the early 1990s, with the band bigger than ever, Bon Jovi chose the Basie Center as a place to come home to, staging holiday concerts that raised tens of thousands for area charities. Upon the shocking death of Long Branch police Sergeant Patrick King in 1988, it was Jon Bon Jovi and Friends who assembled on the Basie stage, resulting in a night of music that included Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, “Southside” Johnny Lyon, host Danny Devito and others, in what many still regard as the greatest concert in Jersey Shore history.

Just down the street from the Basie Center sits the JBJ Soul Kitchen, Jon’s “pay as you can / pay it forward” model restaurant that has set a standard for recognizing and addressing food insecurity. Jon and his bands are no stranger to the Basie Center, with dozens of full concerts, guest appearances at the star-studded HOPE concerts, and more.

As one of Rolling Stone‘s Top 100 Singers of All-Time, Darlene Love is also synonymous with the Count Basie Center and the Jersey Shore sound. Her annual Christmastime performances here – often situated around annual late-night holiday TV appearances with David Letterman or Jimmy Fallon – are the stuff of legend. In Ms. Love’s 60+ year career, she has backed up more than 200 musicians — but more importantly are the moments in which she has stepped forward and presented her own, inimitable self. Her unforgettable hits include He’s A Rebel, The Boy I’m Gonna Marry, Wait ‘Til My Bobby Gets Home, He’s Sure the Boy I Love and the #1 holiday classic (Christmas) Baby Please Come Home, which has become a seasonal standard worldwide, and earned Love the rightful crown as “The Queen of Christmas.” Her contemporary work with producer and E Street Band Hall of Famer Steven Van Zandt, plus her placement in the celebrated 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, has solidified Darlene Love as a singer and superstar for the ages.

In late 1989, as music was emerging from the din of hair metal and pop and into a new era of modern rock, New Jersey outfit The Smithereens were poised to take the next step. Almost overnight, the band’s anthem, “A Girl Like You,” went national, becoming a staple on American radio and giving yet another Garden State band a pedestal on which to rock. But locals knew better — The Smithereens had been rocking these parts for years, with songs like “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” from the album Especially For You, cited by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain as one of his all-time favorites. Here at the Count Basie Center, the band stood tall at the 2001 ‘Alliance For Neighbors’ show, one of the first American concerts to benefit families affected by the 9/11 tragedies.

On December 12, 2017 – just weeks prior to a Smithereens’ headline performance here – we lost lead singer Pat DiNizio. Rather than cancel the show, the remaining Smithereens – founding guitarist Jim Babjak and drummer Dennis Diken – decided to soldier on, turning the performance into an all-star tribute to the indelible mark DiNizio made on the New Jersey music scene. Gin Blossoms vocalist Robin Wilson, Patty Smyth, Ted Leo, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Marshall Crenshaw, Bebe Buell and others took turns at the mic. Money raised from that performance established and continues to fund the Basie Center’s Pat Dinizio Musical Performance Scholarship.