ABOUT PETER ALAN LESSER

Peter Lesser is a music enthusiast from New York State. In the 1980s, he and his wife Therese started the Java Jive Coffee House in the Adirondack Village of Saranac Lake, NY. The joy of presenting music led to producing concerts in area theaters and parks as well as some acoustic music festivals. In 1992, Peter went to work at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, NY and then in 2000 at the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center (AKA “The Egg”), where he presented a wide variety of music, dance and family shows.

Moving to Santa Monica, California in 2022, Peter started writing about music instead of presenting it with a book about the Live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop concert series, which is due to be published by The History Press in February 2026. His latest projects include the story of the folk music boom, bust and rebirth in the San Francisco Bay Area and a biography of musician Mark O’Connor, to be published in 2027 as part of the University Press of Mississippi’s “American Made Music” series.

Photo by Therese Lesser