Lorenzo Petrocca was born February 18, 1964, in Crotone, in Calabria, southern Italy. His family emigrated to Germany in 1979, when he was fifteen, settling in the Stuttgart region. He channeled the disruption of the move into boxing, a sport he had already taken up at home, and became champion of Baden-Württemberg in his weight class in 1981 and champion of southern Germany in 1982.

Self-taught on guitar, he bought his first electric guitar at eighteen and started out backing Italian dance bands, then from 1986 played funk and soul music in groups built around the American military community in the region. He did not discover jazz until 1989, at twenty-five. Within a few years he was working the German jazz-guitar circuit: he recorded with the chamber-jazz group Trio Voyage on Die Erste (1993, Edition Musikat), alongside flutist Thomas Eisendle and a young trumpeter, Sebastian Studnitzky, and in 1994 formed the Lorenzo Petrocca Quartet with his younger brother, bassist Davide Petrocca.

That quartet's debut, Insieme (1995, Edition Musikat), added the Milanese guitarist and harmonica player Bruno De Filippi as a guest on harmonica, a Discogs-documented credit connecting Petrocca to one of postwar Italian jazz's veteran session players, then well into the standards-based second half of his own career. The same year Petrocca joined the Stuttgarter Gitarren Trio, a three-guitar unit with Dieter Fischer and Frank Kuruc that recorded A Tribute to Barney Kessel Vol. 1 (1996, Edition Musikat) and a second volume in 1999. His own biography describes performing at a 1995 benefit concert for Barney Kessel alongside Herb Ellis and John McLaughlin; that specific performance is not documented as a shared studio or release credit on Discogs and is recorded here as a press-claimed, not independently credit-verified, connection.

Petrocca found his signature format in 1998 with Stop It! (Edition Musikat), a trio session with Hammond organist Alberto Marsico, a Discogs-documented "featuring" credit and the start of a working relationship that continues today in the Italian Organ Trio, a group Discogs' own artist data lists both men as members of, alongside drummer Tommy Bradascio. His main working band, though, became the Lorenzo Petrocca Organ Trio, built from the late 2000s with Thomas Bauser on Hammond organ and Armin Fischer on drums; the trio's self-released My Music (2011) was named CD of the Year by Archtop-Germany, a specialist jazz-guitar publication, though the album itself is not catalogued on Discogs. The same trio, joined by singer Fauzia Maria Beg for a program billed as a homage to Nancy Wilson, recorded Fancy Miss Lancy (2014, House Master Records) and, on its own, Live in Studio (2016, In Vivo Records), the latter drawing its repertoire from George Benson, Horace Silver and Miles Davis alongside Domenico Modugno's "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu."

From 2018 Petrocca also began a long-running "Jazz a la Flute" duo with German flutist Isabelle Bodenseh, recording Mrs Bo's Cookbook (2018) and Essenza (2020, GLM Music), both mixing originals with jazz and Brazilian standards. In 2017 he revisited his own roots with Round About Italy (HGBS Blue Records), a quartet recording of Italian song standards with keyboardist William Lecomte, bassist Jens Loh and drummer Antoine Fillon. Beyond his own leader dates, Discogs documents him as a sideman guitarist on the Calogero Marrali Quartet's Homage to Jackie McLean (2001, Splasc(h) Records), a session that also reunited him with his brother Davide on bass and put him alongside the American alto saxophonist Jim Snidero, and on his brother's own Davide Petrocca Quartet album Move (1999, Edition Musikat), which features the British drummer Martin Drew, long a member of Oscar Peterson's trio.

Petrocca was made an honorary citizen of New Orleans in April 2001 following a week-long tour of Louisiana. He continues to lead the Organ Trio, the Lorenzo Petrocca Quartet and the Jazz a la Flute duo from his base near Stuttgart, and released a solo album, My Foolish Heart, in 2024.

Petrocca's core idiom is the Hammond organ trio, the format he has returned to most often since 1998, drawing on a repertoire that runs from soul-jazz and boogaloo staples (George Benson, Horace Silver) to the Great American Songbook. His guitar-trio and guitar-quartet work sits closer to mainstream swing, anchored by tribute projects built explicitly around Barney Kessel and, with the group Fish's JAM-BALAYA, Nat King Cole. A third strand runs through his two most personal projects: Round About Italy, built entirely from Italian song standards, and the long-running Jazz a la Flute duo with Isabelle Bodenseh, which leans toward Brazilian and Latin repertoire (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Bosco) alongside jazz standards. Across all three settings, his own compositions, recorded on Die Erste, Move, Mrs Bo's Cookbook and Essenza among others, stay close to the same standards-based vocabulary rather than pushing toward the avant-garde.