Marcello Pellitteri is a jazz drummer, pianist, composer, arranger and educator born in Palermo, Sicily. He trained initially in Palermo before moving to the United States, where he graduated Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston and earned a Master's Degree in Jazz Studies with Distinction in Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, studying drums with Alan Dawson, Bob Moses and Bob Kaufman and composition with Jeronimas Kacinskas and Herb Pomeroy. He has taught at Berklee for nearly four decades and holds a professorship in the college's Ensemble Department, and has been based chiefly in Boston and New York for most of his career, while continuing to return to Sicily regularly, including for performances.

On Discogs, his verified sideman discography runs from 1981 to 2024 and spans more than forty credited releases, including a long-running relationship with the Grammy-winning vocal jazz group New York Voices, documented across four releases from 2001's Sing! Sing! Sing! through 2023's Losing My Mind (a Darmon Meader session). He is Discogs-credited on drums, guira and handclaps on Making Memories (2013, Enja Records), the Werner "Vana" Gierig session featuring clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, and on drums for the Salvatore Bonafede Trio's Sicilian Opening (2010, Jazz Eyes), a session with fellow Sicilian pianist Salvatore Bonafede. His earliest Sicilian-scene credit on Discogs is a 1981 appearance with the Enzo Randisi Swing Ensemble, arranged by clarinetist and vibraphonist Enzo Randisi and also featuring pianist Riccardo Randisi.

As a leader, Pellitteri's Discogs-documented catalog includes the co-billed Gomez Pellitteri Esen Trio (1988), a trio date with bassist Eddie Gomez and pianist Aydin Esen; Zoom - Love Junket (2007, Challenge Records), co-billed as the group Zoom with keyboardist Andy Ezrin and bassist Jean-Baptiste Bocle; Arty Facts (2015, JazZone Records), a five-way co-billed session with bassist-composer Arnon Palty, guitarist Dan Adler, pianist Lewis Porter and harmonica player Yvonnick Prene; and his sole-name leader album, Aquarius Woman (2016, Marpel Music), which drew a 4 1/2-star review from Downbeat and reunited him with Salvatore Bonafede alongside saxophonist Orazio Maugeri and bassist Gabrio Bevilacqua. A companion 2016 self-produced album, Acceptance, is not catalogued on Discogs but is documented through its All About Jazz review and other press coverage: a record dedicated to his daughter Veronica Pellitteri (1991-2014), who died in a car accident in Milan, with a personnel list reported to include guitarists David Gilmore, Yotam Silberstein and Kevin Barry, bassists Francois Moutin and Matthew Parrish, organist Gary Versace and vocalist Philip Hamilton, plus a vocal contribution from Veronica herself on one track. Press coverage describes Acceptance and Aquarius Woman as the first two entries in a planned series of albums dedicated to Veronica.

Beyond his own credited discography, press and institutional bios describe a wider performing history with Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Jon Hendricks, Kenny Barron, Dave Samuels, Slide Hampton and Wynton Marsalis, plus backing work with the Gipsy Kings, the Boston Pops and the Taipei Philharmonic; these are reported in his own promotional materials and press profiles rather than confirmed via a shared Discogs session credit. One connection is independently dated outside Discogs: Wynton Marsalis's own website's tour archive lists Pellitteri on drums with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at a September 16, 1996 concert at Avery Fisher Hall in New York marking Jon Hendricks's 75th birthday, placing him on stage with both Marsalis and Hendricks that night. He received the "Una vita per il jazz" (A Life for Jazz) award at the 1986 Harlem Festival in Italy and the 2023 Marineo Special International Prize, awarded in the Province of Palermo.

Discogs separately lists an unrelated "Marcello Pellitteri" (artist ID 1339926), a saxophonist credited on the 1986 rock compilation Rockin' Italy. This is a different person from the Palermo-born jazz drummer profiled here, and the two Discogs entities should not be conflated.

Pellitteri works in a straight-ahead, hard-bop-rooted mainstream idiom typical of the New York and Boston jazz circles he has spent his career in, equally at home in piano-trio and quartet settings, backing vocal jazz ensembles, and contributing hand percussion, such as guira and handclaps, to Latin-inflected sessions like Making Memories. His two solo-billed albums, Acceptance and Aquarius Woman, both released in 2016, mark a turn toward deeply personal, dedication-driven material following his daughter Veronica's death, pairing his working New York sideman network with Sicilian-scene collaborators such as Salvatore Bonafede. As an educator, nearly four decades on the Berklee faculty have made him as much a shaper of other drummers' rhythmic language as a performer in his own right.