Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry

Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry is an American musician, educator, and inventor, most known for his electric violin and fretless piccolo bass work, owner of the electric violin manufacturing company “Outlaw Fiddle,” author of “Fiddle Jam, a way-cool easy way to learn how to improvise!” (Hal Leonard Corp.) and “Rock n Blues Fiddle Jam A-Toodz,” founder of the online school the Fiddle Jam Institute. He has performed and recorded with many notable artists.

Career

Perry was a member of the instrumental rock group, “Gamalon” from 1987 to 1995 where he played electric violin, rhythm guitar and fretless piccolo bass and was a contributing songwriter. Highlights from Gamalon's history include MCA and Amherst Records releases, a No. 8 Billboard Jazz Chart showing, and a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival; Gamalon also recorded and toured with saxophonist Ernie Watts. Perry has been an endorsing artist for Pearse Amplifiers (1989) and D’Addario Strings (2002) and was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

From 2005-2015, he was a member of the Gypsy Jazz group, “Babik,” playing violin. Babik was featured on PRI’s “The World” show, and were featured soloists with symphonic orchestras (Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and others), playing new arrangements of guitarist Django Reihardt's music (arr. by Brent Havens). They also collaborated with guitarist, Stephane Wremble.

In 1998 Perry played bass guitar in Rock group “In From The Cold” with drummer Gary Mallaber, guitarist Jack Sherman and fellow Buffalo Music Hall of Famer, Maria Sebastian. He's recorded and toured with New Age guitarist Paul Carrol Binkley from 1987-1995, and performed as a member of Mark Freeland’s “Electroman” between 1993-1996 with many guest musicians including Psychedelic Furs saxophonist Mars Williams. He recorded four albums as a contributing member of LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales, performing extensively from 1996-2004.

Perry was a teaching artist for Young Audiences and McClure Artists Guild (2000-2008), and taught improvisational “Fiddle Jam” clinics at schools across the U.S. (2002-2008) in support of his method book by the same name, published and distributed worldwide by the Hal Leonard Corporation(2002). He's also been a speaker at many educational events and conferences including the American String Teacher Association, New York State School Music Association, and the University of Florida. He performed with (Olympian, sports commentator, musician) Marty Liquori's Hot Club DeVille (2008-2018) alongside accordionist Michael Ward-Bergman. Perry also has a U.S. Patent application pending for an “electric bowed string instrument pickup system" that is manufactured by his company "Outlaw Fiddle."

Discography

• Loosely Tight - Dawn of a New Day (1980)
• Paul Carrol Binkley - (Heart Dance Music, 1987)
• Paul Carrol Binkley - Flying Colors (Heart Dance Music, 1989)
• Gamalon - Aerial View (MCA Records, 1990)
• Gamalon - High Contrast (Amherst Records 1991)
• Ani DiFranco - Imperfectly (Righteous Babe Records, 1992)
• Fitzhugh and the Fanatics - Blue Standards (1994)
• Fitzhugh and the Fanatics - Flavor (Hot Wings Entertainment, 1997)
• LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales - Big Box Bop (1996)
• LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales - Shango Shake (1998)
• LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales - Raw Roots LeeRon Live (2000)
• LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales - ZyFi Revenge of the Roots (2004)
• Fiddle Jam - educational, play-along book performance recordings (Hal Leonard Corp., 2001)
• Unfretted - a compilation of worldwide guitarists (2005)
• Babik - Pronounced Ba-Beek (2006)
• Babik - American Gypsy (2008)
• Geoff Perry & Darrel Nutt - Conflation (Translucent Records, 2014)

Publications

Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry is the author of “Fiddle Jam, a way-cool easy way to learn how to improvise!” (Hal Leonard Corp. 2001), and “Rock n Blues Fiddle Jam A-Toodz” (Fiddle Jam Institute 2008, 2012, 2017). He has also been featured with a chapter on him in the book “Alternative Strings” by Julie Lyon Leiberman, and has multiple features in iFiddle Magazine issues from Fall 2014 up until Summer 2021, being the cover story for issue number 6.

Family

Perry was born on March 29, 1961, in Buffalo, New York to church organist mother Dianne L. Perry (1939-present) and ex-naval sharpshooter, electrical engineer and political activist, James Standley Perry (1932-2017). He had one sister, Kathleen Anne Perry, also a known musician, a Classical and Jazz violist and flautist (1964-2011). Perry is great great great grandson of historical figure, Oliver Hazard Perry (Admiral of US Navy, War of 1812), and great great great nephew of Commodore Mathew Perry and is named after his father’s naval commanding officer Admiral Fitzhugh Lee III. He married Elizabeth Ann Perry in 1997.

Education

Perry studied piano with his mother, Dianne Perry (1966-1971), Jazz Guitar and music theory with Louis Palowski (1974-1977), and classical violin (1974-1982) with Dennis Piwowarski (Buffalo Philharmonic and National Symphony), Charles Haupt (concertmaster of Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra) and members of the Rowe String Quartet while on full scholarship for violin performance at the University of Buffalo. He attended the New York State Summer School of the Arts: School for Orchestral Studies in 1978 before graduating from Lancaster (NY) High School in 1979. As a devotee of the Jaco Pastorious style, he taught himself to play bass guitar, performing and recording extensively throughout the Western New York and North Eastern US regions in his first decade as a professional before shifting his primary focus to the electric violin after joining instrumental Rock group Gamalon.

External links

• www.fiddlejam.com
• www.fiddlejaminstitute.com
• www.outlawfiddle.com

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