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Mark Morganelli

Mark Morganelli is a NY-based trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer and leader of The Jazz Forum All-Stars, and Executive Director of Jazz Forum Arts.

About Me

Mark Morganelli, Trumpet, Flugelhorn Executive Director, Jazz Forum Arts

Mark Morganelli began presenting concerts in his first Jazz Forum loft at 50 Cooper Square in June 1979. By the time the second Jazz Forum loft closed its doors in April 1983, recordings, videos, films and radio broadcasts had documented performances by Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, Woody Shaw, Red Rodney, Carmen McRae, Barry Harris, Philly Joe Jones and Max Roach. After brief residencies at the Village Gate and the Entermedia Theater, Morganelli established Jazz Forum Arts, a not-for-profit arts presenting organization, and in 1985 started the Riverside Park Arts Festival, which concluded on its 13th anniversary in August 1997. Morganelli has produced over fifty compact discs, most for Candid Records, twenty of which were recorded “live” at NYC’s Birdland club, where he was the music coordinator for five years.

Eighteen years ago, Morganelli and his family moved to Westchester, and shortly thereafter, he inaugurated the Jazz at the Music Hall series in Tarrytown. Performers have included Ahmad Jamal, Billy Taylor, Harry “Sweets” Edison, James Moody, Lionel Hampton, Betty Carter, Gerry Mulligan, Herbie Mann, Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, Dave Brubeck, Chuck Mangione, and the Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestras. Morganelli produced the Sunnyside and Berkshire Jazz Festivals and was executive producer of “Reckson Jazz at Tilles”, at C.W.Post College in Greenvale, Long Island for nine years. Other productions have included the Tarrytown Arts Festival, and concerts at Paramount Center in Peekskill, the Palace Theatre in Stamford, CT, NJPAC, The John Harms Center in Englewood, NJ, the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, SUNY, The Beacon Theatre and The Town Hall, NYC. Morganelli also produced the Dizzy Gillespie 75th Birthday concert at Carnegie Hall and co-produced the “Jazz Beats Breast Cancer” concert at Avery Fisher Hall. In 2005, he began presenting a new concert series at Jazz @ Lincoln Center, with the most recent presentation being “Jazz Forum @ 30: A Celebration” at the Rose Theater.

As a trumpeter and flugelhornist, Morganelli performed at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival, the 1992 & 1994 Syracuse Jazz Festivals, the Du Maurier Downtown Toronto Jazz Festival, JVC/NY and Saratoga Jazz Festivals, several tours of Italy, many concerts and festivals in Europe, Japan, Brazil and the Caribbean, and hosted nightly jam sessions aboard QE2 to the Newport Jazz Festival from 1996-99. He continues to perform with his Jazz Forum All-Stars Brazil Project, most recently featured on the mainstage at the 2009 Freihofer’s Jazz Festival as well as around the region and has released “My Romance,” his fourth CD as leader.