Eugene (Gene) Morvay, 98, a drummer and a member of Local 802 since 1946, died on Oct. 20, 2025.

Mr. Morvay was born in the South Bronx. On his website (which can still be found archived here), he wrote this short autobiography (edited for style and grammar and updated with information from Mr. Morvay’s son John):

“My love of drums began from listening to the big band at the world’s fair in 1939. My father Albert Morvay would take me to the ‘dancing campus’ to hear all of the new bandleaders: Gene Krupa (who had just left Benny Goodman), Harry James, Charlie Barnet, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and numerous others. I was hooked on drums and studied hours every day on a drum pad at home. I started playing in Morris Junior High School Band and then moved to Queens, where I played with the Bryant High School orchestra and jazz band. Here I met my lifelong friend Sonny LaRosa (1926-2024) who led the worldly-acclaimed ‘America’s Youngest Jazz Band.’

“I was drafted into the Army and went to Berlin, where I was the youngest sergeant to direct the percussion section of the 298th Army Ground Force Band. After being discharged, I traveled all over the United States and Canada playing with Don Michaels, Gus Vali, Billy Arnold’s Manhattanites, and others.

“In the 1950s, I played with Tony Bennett before Bennett was well known, at the Horseshoe Club in Sunnyside, Long Island.  Later, I sat in with Charlie Mingus on at least one gig. Mingus told me that I could let loose and didn’t have to use brushes. I was also hired by Buddy Greco, Cab Calloway and Jan August. I played jazz with Charlie Shavers, plus telethons with Marvin Hamlisch, where I met Jeff Ganz, the world renown bass player (who ended up studying drums with me).

“After getting married in 1958, I stopped touring and started playing club dates in the NYC area, a gig that lasted almost 30 years. I played with some of the top club date offices in New York City, including Steven Scott, Lester Lanin, Hal Darnell, The Noblemen, and many others.

“I also started teaching at the North Shore Conservatory in Great Neck, Long Island. I also taught at public schools in the Bronx and numerous music schools in Queens, plus private teaching in my home in Whitestone, New York. One of my early students was Keith Copeland (1946-2015), who became a world class renown jazz drummer. (Keith Copeland remembered Gene in a 2014 interview: “He could swing, he was a good player,” said Keith.)

“I have two beautiful children, Arlene and John. When I first wrote these words in 2009 at the age of 82, Arlene was a teacher on Long Island and John was a bandleader and contractor in Las Vegas. I’m also proud of my  four grandchildren who are all musically talented: Christopher, Elizabeth, Sara and Amanda.

“After 60 years of performing and teaching, I moved to Safety Harbor, Florida, where I enjoyed teaching and playing club dates.”

Mr. Morvay’s son John no longer plays music professionally, but he remembers doing gigs with his father. He says that his father was playing drums all the way up to his death at age 98, even at his senior living facility in Florida. The facility would bring in guest musicians like pianists, and Mr. Morvay would sit in. He practiced every day, working out rudiments on a drum (or a drum pad) in the courtyard.

“We didn’t think he’d ever die because he was so youthful,” John told Allegro.

The senior living facility wrote a tribute to Mr. Morvay in July 2025, just a few months before he died. The article quotes Mr. Morvay as saying, “At 98 years young, Gene says his secret to staying youthful is simple: ‘Keep on drumming.'”

Gene Morvay at age 98 at his senior living facility in Florida in 2025, a few months before he passed