Jeffrey H. Lorber was born on November 4, 1952, in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb that also produced Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker. He grew up in a Jewish family, started playing piano at four, and played in R&B bands as a teenager before entering Berklee College of Music in Boston, where his interest turned to jazz and he played alongside the guitarist John Scofield. He also studied chemistry at Boston University. In the early 1970s he headed west, planning, by his own account, to study aikido in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the culture shock sent him driving on instead, and he settled in the Portland, Oregon, area, later living across the river in Vancouver, Washington.

His first group, the Jeff Lorber Fusion, debuted in 1977 with a self-titled album on Inner City Records, followed by Soft Space (1978), which featured Chick Corea and the saxophonist Joe Farrell as guests. Arista signed the band, and in a relationship that lasted about six years it released Water Sign (1979), Wizard Island (1980), Galaxian (1981), and It's a Fact (1982). The early records leaned on a funky keyboard sound, with Lorber moving among acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, Minimoog, and Prophet-5 and absorbing the example of Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and Return to Forever. Wizard Island was the first album by Lorber or the band to reach number one on the U.S. jazz albums chart, and it brought in the saxophonist Kenneth Gorelick, soon to be known as Kenny G. Lorber has said he went through every saxophonist in town before hiring Gorelick for his attitude rather than his playing. Gorelick stayed for Galaxian, and Lorber produced and arranged his 1982 debut album for Arista, recorded with members of the Fusion. The Water Sign track "Rain Dance" has since been sampled by hip-hop and pop acts including Lil' Kim, SWV, and Ariana Grande.

Lorber released In the Heat of the Night in 1984 and then made Step by Step (1985) with the production duo David Frank and Mic Murphy of the System; its title track, written with Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters, reached number 31 on Billboard's R&B chart, and "Pacific Coast Highway" from the album gave him his first Grammy nomination, for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, at the 1986 ceremony. He moved to Warner Bros. for Private Passion (1986), whose single "Facts of Love," sung by Karyn White, reached number 27 on the Hot 100 and number 17 on the R&B chart and remains his biggest pop hit. Lorber was uneasy with the push, from Arista's head Clive Davis among others, to add vocalists and chase singles, and later said he felt he had become a sideman in his own band. He turned instead to studio work, a seven-year gap in his own recording.

Through the late 1980s and early 1990s he played keyboards and produced for pop and R&B acts, with dance-record credits alongside Paula Abdul, Nu Shooz, Sheena Easton, the Isley Brothers, and Jody Watley, and he made jazz-oriented records for others: Dave Koz's self-titled 1990 debut for Capitol, Michael Franks's Blue Pacific (1990, four of its eight tracks), Eric Marienthal's Oasis (1991, with Russell Ferrante), and Art Porter's Pocket City (1992). His own return came with Worth Waiting For (1993) on Verve Forecast, followed by West Side Stories (1994), State of Grace (1996), Midnight (1998), and Kickin' It (2001) on Samson. In 2001 JazzTimes called him a statesman of smooth jazz and noted that he had spent two years as musical director of an awards show devoted to the genre. Philly Style (2003) and Flipside (2005) came out on Narada Jazz, and Flipside was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. In 2004 he was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, a condition that runs in his family, and received a successful kidney transplant from his wife, Mink Lorber; he has since been a spokesman for the PKD Foundation. He Had a Hat (Blue Note, 2007), produced with Bobby Colomby and featuring Eric Benét, Chris Botti, and the Blood, Sweat & Tears horn section, was nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 2008 awards and lost to Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters.

In 2010 he revived the Jeff Lorber Fusion name for Now Is the Time (Heads Up), a Best Contemporary Jazz Album nominee at the 2011 awards, with the saxophonist Eric Marienthal in the band through Galaxy (2012) and Hacienda (2013), which was nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Album. In 2014 he, the saxophonist Everette Harp, and the guitarist Chuck Loeb formed the trio Jazz Funk Soul, whose debut was nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album the next year; Paul Jackson Jr. took over the guitar chair after Loeb's death in 2017. Prototype (Shanachie, 2017), co-produced with the bassist Jimmy Haslip, won Lorber his first Grammy, for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, on January 28, 2018, after six earlier nominations. Impact (2018) followed, then Eleven (Concord Jazz, 2019), a co-billed record with Mike Stern, and the Shanachie albums Space-Time (2021) and The Drop (2023).

Lorber released Elevate on August 23, 2024, on SRG Jazz, co-producing it with the label's president, Claude Villani; his own website counts it as his 32nd release. He and Villani also record as Architects of Sound, whose second album was announced for June 5, 2026. According to David Benoit's profile, he and Benoit released the single "Boarding Pass" on January 30, 2026, and Jazz Funk Soul issued its fifth album, Simpatico, on Shanachie on July 11, 2025. As of November 3, 2026, his official site lists a Jazz Funk Soul date in Mesa, Arizona, on November 5, an appearance at the Cancun Jazz Festival Fall Edition in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, from November 13 to 15, and a European tour from November 20 to 29 that includes Blue Note Milano and Ronnie Scott's in London on November 25. He also teaches an online keyboard course. Many of his tracks have also been used on The Weather Channel's "Local on the 8s" segments and compilation albums.

Lorber has named Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock as his first inspirations, and to learn how they played he went back through the piano tradition, studying Wynton Kelly, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Red Garland, Bill Evans, and Keith Jarrett, then combined that with a love of funk and R&B. His early Fusion records are built on layered keyboards, a rhythm section that grooves hard, and improvised solos, and JazzTimes noted in 2001 that those 1970s records were far more improvisational than the radio-oriented smooth jazz that followed in their wake. Lorber himself plays down the label of founder, saying the founders of fusion were Corea, Hancock, and Miles Davis, but he is often described as a pioneer of smooth jazz, and his career has run through jazz-funk and fusion records, pop and R&B production, and contemporary-jazz radio hits. His later records are more piano-centered and band-driven, built around guitar, bass, drums, and horns, with a steady stream of guest guitarists and saxophonists. His honors are the 2018 Grammy for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and six other nominations across the jazz, pop, and R&B fields, from 1986 to 2015.