IRVINGTON, NJ — The final installment of the three-part Taste of Irvington Jazz in the Square concert series is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 18, from 5 to 9 p.m. in Civic Square and its organizers are hoping the entire community will come out to enjoy the event.
According to the Jazz in the Square organizers, Neighborhood Preservation Department Director Melody Scott, at large Councilwoman and Municipal Council Vice President Renee Burgess and Jamilah Beasley-McCleod, they saved the best for last.
“After a successful Unity Day, I can’t help but be excited for Taste of Irvington part 3,” said Burgess on Tuesday, Aug. 16. She said the second installment of the Taste of Irvington series last month, “was so entertaining with Hunter Hayes and Govana Burgess-Humes’ performances that it made everyone feel good and their faces showed it. The vendors had great food, jewelry and other items of interest. It’s just going to be a great time!”
“The kind of people that came out — classy, classic people who are upwardly mobile, progressive people who like ‘old school’ jazz, R&B, Marvin Gaye, Nat King Cole, Al Green — they love all the classics,” said one of the event’s star performers, Emmy Award-winning musician Hunter Hayes on Thursday, July 21.
Dimension Band and Valerie Adams had top billing at the first installment of the Taste of Irvington Jazz in the Square concert series on Thursday, June 16, and Hayes headlined the second installment.
Based on the feedback Burgess said she and the other concert organizers received from attendees, “They are looking forward to this Thursday as well and even more of these events next year.”
“There’s a new Irvington rising and people are starting to see and feel the positive changes all around,” Burgess said, adding, “It just goes to show that, with everyone working together to make these changes happen, the sky’s the limit! Watch out, surrounding cities, Irvington is back! And through prayer, good leadership with our mayor, a council that works together and a community that cares, we’re going to be better than ever.”
Vauss said he couldn’t have said it better himself.
“One of the things is that people believe what they see and, if you can see the progress, you can show the progress and show what we’re doing and then you can believe it,” said Vauss on Saturday, Aug. 13, at the annual Unity Day event in Orange Avenue Park. “I can’t tell you that a street was paved on the opposite side of town if you never go on that side of town, but if we pave it and we show it to you, you’ll know that the work is being done and it gives you hope that the rest of the town is going to come along and even your neighborhood is going to come along as well. That’s what we try to do and we try to put it out there by mail, cable TV, also social media. We try to get the word out.”
Vauss said, thanks to word of mouth, he expects a bigger crowd to the third installment of Taste of Irvington than the first two two combined.
“I’m glad that everybody wants to be a part of it,” said Vauss. “When you have a community and any place that you look at, historically, for a sense of community, you have lower crime. You have more people graduating from high school; going on to college, getting a college education. So those things go hand in hand with what I like to call ‘clean and safe’ communities.”
Civic Square brings the jazz a third time added by Chris Sykes on
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