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Dad

by Matt Lavelle

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Gary Lavelle (12/20/41-1/19/23)

I liked to tell my dad nobody knew me as long as he did, except my mom of course. What made him different as a father was that he never knew or even saw a picture of his father. He wanted to give me what he never had, and his intention was his gift. I told him recently “You never had a father, but I did, thanks to you.” He responded with tears in his eyes and said “I just wanted to be a cool Dad.”

Cool he was. Gary Lavelle was a bartender for 30 years. One of my favorite memories will always be when we both were working at this restaurant where he was the bar manager and I was a barback/dishwasher. The staff went to a club after work and there was a blues band playing. The place was jammed and the blues were in full flow. Nobody knew I was a musician, and when I suddenly appeared on stage and dropped some choice blue notes with my trumpet, the place just erupted. People were screaming and going nuts, but what I remember was looking down and seeing my dad sitting there watching this go down, proud as hell. He saw the 12 Houses at Roulette, though he said the music went over his head. Just recently he introduced me to some nurses with a big smile and said “He’s a musician.” It took us a long way to get there.

The memory I’ve kept takes me back to the late 70’s. My folks had divorced and my dad would pick my brother Mike and I up on weekends and just drive us around, get haircuts, eat hot dogs, stuff like that. We went to a park one time with a football. Back in his hey-dey, Gary was a kicker on the football team (He was a devoted lifelong Steelers fan) He could still kick the ball very far. He kept kicking it further and higher. Finally this one kick, the ball went so high I lost sight of it. As a kid, I thought maybe he kicked the ball right into space.

I recently had a very lucid dream where the two of us were standing on a hill at night, looking up at an extremely clear night sky, where you could see thousands of stars in an infinite universe.


My Dad looked at me and said, “Well, It looks like it’s time to go.”


Now just like that he is gone forever



Rest in peace and sail on, Gary Lavelle

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released January 19, 2023

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Matt Lavelle New York, New York

Matt Lavelle plays trumpet, alto and bass clarinet, is a bandleader, painter. and writer based in Philadelphia and NYC

"You have to be who you are in this world, no matter what" (Denzel Washington)

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