New York City Jazz Hero
New York
Joe Petrucelli is the quintessential jazz mensch. As Executive Director of the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA), he heads a national nonprofit in providing such services as housing, healthcare, disaster relief, dignified employment and emergency financial assistance to musicians (and sometimes jazz journalists) in need. Joe’s responsibilities at JFA encompass program development, fundraising, production of amazing events including A Great Night in Harlem at the Apollo Theater and Jazz Loft Party fundraisers, financial management and direct work with clients.
Coming into the JFA in 2008, working at first with former ED Wendy Oxenhorn, Joe brought a steady head and hand to his role, and significant depth of jazz knowledge that informs his enormous respect for the creativity of jazz musicians. Since he’s become ED, the JFA has significantly expanded its program reach, asset base and recently its philanthropic profile by partnering with the Mellon Foundation on the Jazz Legacies Fellowship, honoring veteran artists’ career-long achievements. Joe has also built a lean yet effective staff, and strengthened links to other organizations helping provide musicians with a social services safety net.
Joe has a long connection with the jazz journalism and the JJA, having worked while in school at Columbia University as my editorial assistant, later on researching archival documentary films, and as Associate Producer for JJA Awards galas. He’s a guitarist, with a long-running prog-punk-jazz trio STATS. He’s got a dry sense of humor and is whip-smart, as one might see on one of his repeat appearances as a winner on Jazzology, the online trivia show hosted by Willard Jenkins. Joe Petrucelli — with a quick smile, always willing to lend a hand — puts his life into assisting others in jazz, with vision, distinction and honor, being an exemplary Jazz Hero.
— Howard Mandel
JJA President
