Electronic music pioneer whose Baroque Hoedown has been heard by millions in Disney resorts
JEAN-JACQUES PERREY, who has died aged 87, was a pioneer of computer music whose Baroque Hoedown has been the soundtrack to the Main Street electrical parade at Disney theme parks since 1972; he also championed the Ondioline, a predecessor of the electronic keyboard that could sound like almost any musical instrument and was once described as looking “like a hybrid piano-cash register”.
Perrey was making electronic music long before computers were in regular use, cutting tape with scissors and carefully reattaching it in the correct place. He explained: “First you have to determine the timing, the tempo; when you have the tempo it corresponds to a certain number of centimetres and millimetres.” The composer only learnt of Disney’s use of Baroque Hoedown when visiting the park near Paris. Interwoven with his work were such standards as Yankee Doodle as well as themes from Disney films such as Cinderella.
Perrey created a library of electronic sounds, generating from them rhythmic sequences that were humorous and quirky. One of his most ingenious arrangements was of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee, incorporating real bee-sounds. Salvador Dalí claimed to have fallen off his chair in amazement when he heard it.
Perrey was born Jean Marcel Leroy near Amiens on January 20 1929. At four he was given an accordion and taught himself popular French songs; by seven he would play in the street as villagers danced. He was sent for piano lessons at nine, but told his teacher he “didn’t want to use scores, only play by ear”.
After the war he formed a jazz band and enrolled at Amiens conservatory, but was expelled after refusing to observe a ban on students performing in public. He moved to Paris in 1947 to study medicine. After meeting Georges Jenny, inventor of the Ondioline, Perrey taught himself the instrument and abandoned his studies to become Jenny’s sales representative in Europe.
He once demonstrated the Ondioline to Django Reinhardt, who invited Perrey back to his caravan and served him roast hedgehog.
He took the Ondioline to Expo 58, the World Fair in Brussels, where he met many of those involved in electronic music, including Pierre Schaeffer, the pioneer of electronic pop. Around the same time he had a chance encounter with Jean Cocteau, who introduced him to Edith Piaf. She funded studio time for him to make a demo recording.
Perrey moved to New York in 1960 and soon he was mixing in the same circles as Robert Moog, the synthesizer inventor, who built an instrument at Perrey’s Manhattan studio.
To supplement his income Perrey toured Around the World in 80 Ways, cabaret show using the Ondioline to create the sound of bagpipes from Scotland, the zither from Hungary and so on. He would give three performances per sailing in the liner France in exchange for first-class travel to and from Europe. Alfred Hitchcock, a fellow passenger on one sailing, showed great interest in the Ondioline.
In 1962 Perrey demonstrated the instrument on Johnny Carson’s show on American television. Walt Disney was a fellow guest and invited Perrey to California, where he spent a week making music for cartoon strips. He also worked with the composer Gershon Kingsley, recording The In Sound from Way Out! (1965), an electropop album whose whimsical tracks bore titles such as Spooks in Space and Girl from Venus. It was followed by Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Spotlight on the Moog (1967), which included Baroque Hoedown.
Perrey returned to France in 1970, where he was disappointed to find that the Ondioline was now obsolete. He worked for a ballet company, created commercials for radio, played the piano in restaurants and experimented with using electronic soundwaves to communicate with dolphins. He also wrote music as an aid to insomnia, and pieces for people with autism.
He was rediscovered in the 1990s a when “youngsters knocked at my door asking me to work with them”. The Beastie Boys used the title and cover art of The In Sound from Way Out! for an album of hip-hop instrumentals, while in 2000 Fatboy Slim released a remix of Perrey’s E.V.A. as a dance number. In 2008 Perrey appeared at the AV Festival at the Sage, Gateshead, where he gave a rare demonstration of the Ondioline.
Latterly he lived in a 16th-century castle in Switzerland. He is survived by a daughter, Patricia Leroy, with whom he also recorded.