1. Jean-Jacques Perrey was one of the first to promote, perform, and record with the Ondioline, developed by Georges Jenny.
24 Facts About Jean-Jacques Perrey
1. 2.
Jean-Jacques Perrey was given his first instrument, an accordion, at age 4 on Christmas Eve, 1933.
3.
Jean-Jacques Perrey learned to play piano and studied music at a conservatory for two months, during which he and several classmates formed a jazz band, which performed at the school and at public venues.
4.
Jean-Jacques Perrey was expelled from the conservatory for violating a prohibition against students performing in public; he later graduated from the Lycee d'Amiens.
5.
Jean-Jacques Perrey studied medicine in Paris for four years, and planned to pursue scientific research.
6.
Jean-Jacques Perrey was an avid reader of science fiction, in particular the works of Isaac Asimov, Aldous Huxley, Arthur C Clarke, and Ray Bradbury, and took occasional work as an accordionist.
7.
In 1950, while enrolled in medical school, Jean-Jacques Perrey heard inventor Georges Jenny playing and promoting his homemade Ondioline on a French radio show.
8.
For six months Jean-Jacques Perrey practiced playing the Ondioline with his right hand while simultaneously playing piano with his left.
9.
At a second session, Jean-Jacques Perrey played Ondioline on three more Trenet songs; the guitarist on two of those later tracks was Django Reinhardt.
10.
That same year, composer Paul Durand hired Jean-Jacques Perrey to provide Ondioline accompaniment for the main theme of the French-Italian tragi-comedic film La Vache et le Prisonnier, which starred French actor-singer Fernandel.
11.
At the Studio of Contemporary Music Research in France, Jean-Jacques Perrey met Pierre Schaeffer, who had pioneered the avant-garde sound art form known as musique concrete.
12.
The association with Piaf, Jean-Jacques Perrey later wrote, proved pivotal in advancing his career.
13.
Jean-Jacques Perrey gave me money to buy studio time, which allowed me to record a few pieces on magnetic tape which were a showcase for the Ondioline.
14.
Jean-Jacques Perrey even decided herself which pieces I should record to obtain maximum effect.
15.
The man to whom Jean-Jacques Perrey had sent the tape was instrument contractor Carroll Bratman, the well-connected proprietor of Carroll Music.
16.
Jean-Jacques Perrey made his US television debut on Tonight Starring Jack Paar; he appeared on The Garry Moore Show, I've Got a Secret, and Captain Kangaroo.
17.
Jean-Jacques Perrey composed jingles for radio and television, sometimes in partnership with Harry Breuer and Angelo Badalementi.
18.
In 1962 Jean-Jacques Perrey issued the LP Musique Electronique du Cosmos, in collaboration with Sam Fiedel and Harry Breuer, on the MusiCues label.
19.
Jean-Jacques Perrey played Moog synthesizer and other keyboards, while Breuer played xylophone and other percussion.
20.
Jean-Jacques Perrey wrote and recorded music for television commercials and various French cartoons, and released several albums of this music on the Montparnasse 2000 label.
21.
In 1997 Jean-Jacques Perrey collaborated with the band Air on the tracks "Remember" and "Cosmic Bird".
22.
At the time, Jean-Jacques Perrey was 80 and living in Lausanne, Switzerland.
23.
The ensemble's debut was scheduled for 22 November 2016, at National Sawdust, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with Jean-Jacques Perrey invited to attend.
24.
Two and a half weeks before the performance, Jean-Jacques Perrey died of lung cancer at the age of 87.