About Pete 
Pete Lavezzoli, born in South Florida, learned to read music and play piano, clarinet, and drums by age 10, becoming a professional drummer and singer in his late teens, forming the Grateful Dead tribute band Crazy Fingers. Playing with Melvin Seals in the JGB Band since 2009 has been a source of great passion and pride for Pete, where the gospel and R&B-based repertoire of the Garcia Band is played to perfection. Alongside working with Melvin, Pete plays and records with guitarist Bobby Lee Rodgers (formerly with Col. Bruce Hampton and the Codetalkers), has moonlighted as a touring drummer with Chicago blues guitarist Albert Castiglia (formerly with Junior Wells), and recorded in the studio with former Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux in Muscle Shoals for her solo album “Back Around.”
Lavezzoli is also a respected music historian with two books published by Continuum Books of New York & London. “The King of All, Sir Duke” (2001) explores the legacy of Duke Ellington in modern jazz, rock, and R&B music. “The Dawn of Indian Music in the West” (2006) tells the story of Ravi Shankar and Indian music’s impact on rock and jazz (including interviews with Mickey Hart, Philip Glass, Ravi Shankar, and others). This book won the ARSC (Association of Recorded Sound) award in 2007 for Best Historical Research, and was later published in India by HarperCollins under the title, “Bhairavi: The Global Impact of Indian Music.”
Since 2003, Lavezzoli has used his reading and speaking voice in volunteer service to the blind, as a narrator for the US Library of Congress, recording audio books on tape with the Library’s Talking Books program.