* En anglais uniquement
Keyboard player T Lavitz joined the Dixie Dregs (aka
the Dregs) in 1979, just after Night of the Living Dregs. He played with the band until it broke up in 1982.
Lavitz issued a number of independent label releases in a jazz-rock vein during the remainder of the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, including Extended Play (1984), Story Time (1986), From the West (1987), T Lavitz and the Bad Habitz (1989), Mood Swing (1991), and Gossip (1996). During the ‘90s he also toured and recorded with a re-formed
Dixie Dregs, appearing on the band’s 1992 live effort
Bring ‘Em Back Alive and the studio album
Full Circle, released two years later. The ‘90s also saw
Lavitz playing with
Widespread Panic and
Jefferson Starship, and forming Jazz Is Dead, a fusion-oriented quartet that put its own spin on
Grateful Dead material, with guitarist
Jimmy Herring, bassist
Alphonso Johnson, and drummer
Billy Cobham. During the new millennium
Lavitz participated in some additional notable collaborative projects, as can be heard on 2001’s Endangered Species (featuring guitarist
Herring and the
Little Feat rhythm section of
Richie Hayward on drums and
Kenny Gradney on bass) and 2006’s Boston T Party (with drummer
Dennis Chambers, bassist
Jeff Berlin, and guitarist
Dave Fiuczynski), the latter featuring
Lavitz not only as keyboardist but also as composer of most of the disc’s material. In the latter half of the 2000s
Lavitz served as a faculty member of the Berklee College of Music and issued a new solo recording, Electric (2009). T Lavitz died unexpectedly in his sleep on October 7, 2010. ~ John Bush & Dave Lynch