Intuitive Music

Jean Jacques Perrey

Born in 1929, France, Jean Jacques Perrey is an important figure in jazz and musique concrete from the early 21st Century, as well as one of the most important writers and musicians from space age pop. He was also the man who helped popularise the Moog synthesizer.

Perrey started playing accordion at the early age of 4 and was later expulsed from the Amiens Conservatory for violating the school rules to perform in public. In 1952, he started playing the Ondioline -a little keyboard invented by Georges Penny characterised by producing sounds with vibrato- becoming the embassor and demostrator of the instrument during a world tour called “Around the World in 80 Ways”. Perrey started recording for jazz artists such as guitarist Django Reinhart ,singer Charles Trenet, and finally the singer Edith Piaf who became his mentor. Piaf helped Perrey to develope his investigations on tape manipulation and introduced him to concrete composer Pierre Schaeffer.

In 1957, Carroll Bratman took Perrey to New York to set up his own studio and got Perrey into some very popular TV shows and he realized some of the most innovative experiments on tape manipulation and looping. He later sarted writing and recording music for the film industry and TV. In 1966, he recorded his first solo album “The In Sound from Way Out!” and started his famous serie of recording based in the use of the Moog synthesizer.

Perrey worked in the music some of the most legendary films and also produced music for the Disneyland attractions. He later returned to France in 1970, where he recorded music for a TV commercials and cartoons and became the musical director of a ballet company. He also worked on music for therapeutic purposes, including one project related with dolphins in Canada.

Jean Jacques Perrey’s legacy to the world of electronic music is uncalculable and has reached the audiences in numerous and different ways. His works have been extensively sampled by artists such as Ice T, and DJ Premiere, specially since Fatboy Slim, who remixed some tracks in Perrey’s remixes album “E.V.A”. Perrey has also influenced to artists such as Pizzicato Five, The Bugles, and Air, to name a few.