Eric DiVito Trio

Professional drummer Ray Levier is a veritable Swiss Army Knife on the kit, facile at finessing jazz-fusion grooves, swinging a jazz combo, laying down rugged hip-hop beats and nasty funk, accompanying singer-songwriters with subtle grace, and bashing away at rock beats with panache and precision.

Ray has also recorded with jazz fusion icons guitarists Mike Stern and John Abercrombie. Ray attended William Patterson College’s prestigious music program headed by legendary bassist Rufus Reid. .

Ray was born into a family of musicians—his father is a pianist and his mother was formerly a vocalist. On his own, he discovered an old beater drum kit in his grandmother’s basement and began thumping away. At age 12, Ray was very badly burned during a camping accident in a chicken coup when a fallen candle set the area ablaze with flames 3 to 4 stories high. Ray was sleeping at the time, and was in a dreamy state slowly sensing danger and oppressive heat as he came conscious. The accident left Ray burned from his head to one inch above his navel, and his recovery involved 6 months of excruciating skin grafts and hospital treatments. Through the accident he lost most of his digits as his hands fused together like fists.

Ray’s biggest immediate obstacle was figuring out how to hold drum sticks basically without fingers. That was a journey in itself that showed his steely determination. He improvised this feat first with duct tape, then a special martial arts glove that he found, and, finally, during college, Ray had a surgery that granted him access and use of his thumb. “Throughout it all, there was no doubt in mind that I could do it. My attitude was that I didn’t die—I will do anything to become a professional drummer,” Ray shares.