All That Jazz, 40 Years and Counting

Mark Morganelli and Ellen Prior at the Jazz Forum in Tarrytown in 2019. Photo by John Abbott

For Mark Morganelli, 1985 was a watershed year. He married Ellen Prior and started a free summer jazz concert series in Riverside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  

This year, the couple are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary as well as the birth of Jazz Forum Arts, which since the early 1990s has become Westchester’s standard bearer for this uniquely American musical artform.  

Formed as a not-for-profit to present high-level jazz by established and emerging performers without the pressure of ticket sales, Jazz Forum Arts has seen its budget grow from $300,000 to $2 million over the past decade. A 40th anniversary fundraising campaign is underway. 

JFA’s financial backing comes from presenting sponsor Montefiore Einstein, with continuing support from National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and Arts Westchester, as well as from individual donors.  

Mark Morganelli performing in the Jazz Forum Arts’ music series in Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Contributed photo

The popular free summer concert series returns this July for its 25th year, presenting 32 performances along the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, Ossining, Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. 

Also under the JFA’s umbrella is the couple’s eight-year-old Tarrytown club, the 100-seat Jazz Forum, which continues to present a mix of premier and up-and-coming performers.  

The club hosts rotating art exhibits and presents educational programs for preschoolers (Jitterbugs) and grades 5-12 (Jazz Forum Student Ensemble) and a monthly open jam session.  

Morganelli previously presented jazz concerts at the Tarrytown Music Hall from 1992-2013, including appearances by Lionel Hampton, Chuck Mangione, Dave Brubeck and Pat Metheny. 

“I feel passionately about continuing the traditions of jazz,” Morganelli said recently, “and turning on the youth as well as people who are uninitiated, to learn and appreciate and enjoy this wonderful art form.” 

Ed Neumeister Quartet performs at the Dobbs Ferry waterfront during the 2022 summer concert series. Photo by Clara Winder

Morganelli, a trumpet player who has performed, produced and recorded with the genre’s top musicians, is releasing his sixth album, For Miles, a tribute to Miles Davis, and leading his Brazilian combo at his club on Feb. 2. 

“I practice every day, I play dozens of gigs a year,” he said. I tour Italy twice a year — I’m playing the whole month of March there.” 

Upstairs, downstairs 

To say Morganelli and Prior live and breathe jazz is not hyperbole: Their home is an apartment above the Jazz Forum in the Dixon Lane building they acquired through a separate entity when they sold their Dobbs Ferry home. 

Over the past eight years, the club has hosted top names like Eddie Palmieri, Roy Hargrove, Ann Hampton Callaway, John Pizzarelli, Monty Alexander, Bill Charlap, Kenny Barron and Catherine Russell. 

A new generation of jazz stars, including Ekep Nkwelle, Samara Joy and Christian Sands, have also found an audience there. 

Support for JFA was particularly evident during the pandemic when the jazz community rallied to ensure they’d be able to reopen after a 15-month shutdown, Prior said.  

Jitterbugs teacher Neal Spitzer in spring 2023 at Jazz Forum in Tarrytown. Photo by Nicholas Carter

“We’re very proud that we’ve developed such a beautifully diverse mosaic in our community — the Jazz Forum Arts community — of people of all ages, all backgrounds, all races, and for the free concerts, all economic levels,” she said.  

A newly formed task force led by board member Tony Maceli, a music teacher in the Valhalla schools, is planning to bring in educators from public and private schools to develop jazz programs, she said. 

Asked how they’ve balanced their marriage and business partnership (Morganelli is JFA’s executive director; Prior is chief operating officer), she replied: “We bicker and duke it out, but have always managed and supported each other and our life has been quite an adventure.”  

With the continued support of JFA’s sponsors and community, the future of jazz is moving straight ahead. 

“From just our Jazz Forum Student Ensemble, the open jam sessions the first Sunday of the month, to hear the level of the talent that’s out there, jazz is in very good hands going forward,” Morganelli said.

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About the Author: Robert Brum