Lee was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. He formally studied trumpet from 5th grade through his freshman year at West Chester University. It was while in High School that Lee got a bass guitar, and started learning songs from the radio by ear. Lee is self-taught on bass guitar and upright bass. After strong encouragement from some fellow musicians, Lee started doing gigs on the weekends and eventually toured internationally with several Philadelphia based recording artist including, The Delphonics, Blue Magic, and Billy Paul. He later moved to New York and worked with Afro-Cuban Percussionist, Mongo Santamaria for five years. For over 25 years Lee has worked with numerous jazz greats including Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Erskine Hawki