Digital Interviews: You've been playing keyboards since you were in grade school?

T Lavitz: I started lessons down in the neighborhood from the local piano teacher when I was seven.

DI: When were you born?

TL: April 16, 1956, in New Jersey.

DI: You started taking lessons about 1963?

TL: The first thing I did was learn to read, and then study classical piano for ten years before I did anything else - about learning blues or how to jam. I had a really good structured background first.

DI: What influences did you have?

TL: My father was a musician. I wanted to play trumpet, and he said, "That's great -- after you play keyboard. Because the theory is laid out on the keyboard, you can play whatever instrument you want." I'm glad I did. It's true.

DI: Where did you study formally?

TL: I studied classical for 10 years, then I went to the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. I graduated from there. Our band director said, "If I was going to college for jazz or for music, I'd go to the University of Miami." I went down there, and that's where I met Rod and the other guys from the Dregs, the band I ended up joining a couple years after that.

DI: How did that come about?

TL: They were like the big band on campus. They were seniors when I was a freshman, and they were already great. We'd follow them around. Besides the classical, I was getting into jazz, but I still liked bands like Led Zeppelin. Someone said, "You've got to hear this band!" They played at a bunch of school functions, and I was blown away; I was a fan right from the start. It was about four years later that I was in the right place at the right time.

DI: Then you were voted "Best New Talent" by Keyboard. You must have been real gratified by that.

TL: I was broke, too, because I had to buy all those copies. [laughs] That was great. It was a direct result of playing with those guys. The music was real challenging, and it was really cool, and the fan base was definitely the epitome of the "cult band" kind of thing. We weren't big, but the fans -- it was like a miniature Grateful Dead. We'd see the same faces for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Every West Coast trip.

DI: How would you characterize the Dreg's music -- jazz, rock, fusion?

TL: It was all that stuff. Jazz, rock, classical, there was country and everything else. It was all kind of mixed up. The band thought, "We'll be huge. We're the only band doing this much diversity." A lot of people, especially at radio, were, "What are you guys?" They needed to feel comfortable. Hardcore rock people thought of us as jazz, and jazzers looked at us and listened to the volume and said, "Oh, that's rock." Within days of each other, we'd open up for Molly Hatchet and Stanley Clarke, and go over great. We could tailor our set to fit with these guys.

DI: After the Dregs broke up, you got into a solo career. There was a 1980s jazz sound, and you were on the forefront of that.

TL: I took some of the influences. I love Pat Metheny's Rioting, and always loved Weather Report. Of course, I was influenced by the Dregs, because I was in the band. Steve Morse taught me a lot about composition just by learning his material. Melody is the thing, but you can have great rhythms and great playing. It was okay. I had a little run there where I was putting out about a record a year.

DI: How many solo albums have you released?

TL: I've done five now. My first two were on Passport. Storytime, From the West -- that was Passport. Then I moved over to Enigma, which was a big '80s label that had Poison and Stryper and those kind of bands. But on their jazz side, they had Richard Elliott and Alan Holdsworth and some cool people. I did another one on their label, then I did an acoustic jazz record that also had Rod on it on an LA jazz label called Nova. I did another one called Gossip, which just came out a few years ago on a small label that was distributed by MCA.

DI: You jammed with the Grateful Dead shortly after the death of Brent Mydland. How did that come about?

TL: I played in the band for one day. I went to school with Bruce Hornsby, who was going to play with them. They asked him for other keyboard players who might be more permanent, and my name came up. Coincidentally, Bob Weir had a business with a friend of ours, and he threw my name in the hat. I guess because my name came from Bruce and then some other person, they went, "Oh, maybe we should..." They'd heard of the Dixie Dregs.

DI: So they offered an invitation?

TL: They flew me up to San Rafael, to their place, and I spent the whole day. It was great. Jerry was really into it. I guess a lot of the keyboard players they played with didn't have the jazz sensibility to hear what he was playing and re-harmonize underneath on the spot. He was really cool. We jammed for about three hours, and we had lunch, and we talked. He said, "You know, this may be a kind of rotating chair. Bruce may come and go -- we don't know what we're going to do. The vocals is going to be a big thing."

DI: How would you judge your vocal ability?

TL: I'm a terrible singer. And I never saw him again. Then Vince auditioned. Funny thing, I go back to the hotel, and I'm like, "I just can't believe I just jammed with the Grateful Dead all day long." They were asking me too many personal questions for me to think they weren't interested. "Would you move?" I said, "In a heartbeat!" [laughs] Maybe they meant, "Would you move away?" [laughs] "Would you move farther away?" [laughs] I called a friend and said, "You'll never believe what I just did." He said, "Forget that, you'll never believe what my friend Vince just did! He just auditioned." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I think he got the gig," and I said, "I think I got the gig."

DI: When did they break the news to you?

TL: I talked to Bob Weir a couple of days later and he said, "Unfortunately for you, we need a keyboard player who's a singer." Then he laughed and said, "Unfortunately for us, we need a keyboard player who's a singer." Getting to know Vince a little since then and hearing the way he plays, he was a good guy for the gig, I think. He's not necessarily a flashy keyboard player, but he could sing the right parts that they needed and play the right parts.

DI: You have a real talent for the organ, especially the Hammond. Is it more difficult to play than a standard keyboard?

TL: I think it's just different. Some guys I listen to -- like Stevie Wonder, or Herbie Hancock, or George Duke -- are great on Clavinet. Clavinet is just another keyboard, but it's the concept, the way they approach it, the notes they play, the rhythms they play, that make it Clavinetistic. So, if you listen to Chester Thompson, who used to be in Tower of Power and plays with Santana, or, for that matter, in this genre, Melvin Seals, who played with Jerry...You know, there's just some people I listen to, it just kind of comes natural, or it doesn't. It's just different. It's the same notes…

DI: Like a spiritual sound?

TL: Well, Melvin, certainly. With the organ -- the sustain, for example, there's no foot pedal for sustain. It's all in your fingers, so you have to re-finger, in a way, to make it not sound choppy. You have to do that in your hands. But if you know that, and you try and do it, it works. A lot of piano players sit on the organ and play it like piano, and the notes sound right, but the feel, the way it comes across, you know...

DI: In the 1990's, the Dregs came back together. How did that come about?

TL: When I was with Widespread Panic in 1991, Phil Walden, who was reassembling Capricorn Records, was saying, "Why don't you ever get the Dixie Dregs back together?" I said, "I'm there." I remember we went to Atlanta and saw Steve Morse play, and he said, "Get me back there, let me talk to Morse." The Dregs used to be on Capricorn, and he just pushed it through. I guess we all wanted to do it.

DI: Then Jazz Is Dead came around?

TL: Yeah, which was perfect.

DI: What was the whole start of that?

TL: I was actually doing a solo keyboard thing, instrumental opening for JGB, which Michael Gaiman was putting together and booking. He said, "Why don't I just throw you on as the opening act? It won't take up much space." So, I did that. He said, "I know you like Beatles, or 'Friend of the Devil' by the Grateful Dead. That's what you should do." "Friend of the Devil" got the best response of my set. He said, "You know what I'd like to do is get some guys together, some top-notch players, to do Miles Davis meets the Grateful Dead." It worked. Deadheads might not know any of us or the bands we're from that much, but they want to hear those tunes.

DI: When people see a "cover band", they're seeing the way the Dead did it, but when they see you, they're seeing the way you do it.

TL: We're interpreting their music. When I was a little kid my parents used to play Wes Montgomery, the guitar player. They used to play a record where he was playing Beatles stuff, like "Eleanor Rigby" -- I remember that tune, I remember him playing it. I don't remember anybody there making fun of it. The Beatles had good songs, he was an instrumentalist, he went, "Oh, okay, I'll do that." -- and he did it his way. He interpreted their music.

DI: Were you a Deadhead before this?

TL: I saw them a couple of times as a fan. I saw Weather Report twice, I'm a Weather Report-head. I saw them more than once. To a Deadhead, if you didn't see them more than 100 times...

DI: You don't qualify?

TL: I don't really qualify officially. [laughs] I had a bunch of their records. Mars Hotel -- I remember when I was 19 or 20, I wore that out. Of course, you know, Europe '72. When I was younger, Workingman's Dead, I mean, we wore those out. Aren't I a Deadhead? If it was another band, you'd say I qualify. Maybe I didn't see them enough or have enough of their repertoire.

DI: What would you like to add to Jazz Is Dead's repertoire?

TL: "Box of Rain" -- we could do something neat with that with Alphonso's acoustic bass and maybe a lot of cymbals. Not swing, but jazz. It's just such a smooth song.

DI: So Jazz Is Dead will be continuing for a while?

TL: I hope so.

DI: You've kind of played off and on with different players through the years, throughout all of your different projects. You seem to have a nice relationship with other musicians.

TL: Oh, you mean where I go back with the same people? I think some certain aspects of my personality fade in their minds, and they're willing to give it another shot. [laughs] Five years later, it's like, "Yeah, you know, he seemed all right." [laughs]