Ben Perowsky

Ben Perowsky ( born May 12, 1966 in New York City ) is an American jazz musician ( drums, percussion, composition, arrangement ).

Life and work

Perowsky comes from a musical family; his father Frank Perowsky is a bebop saxophonist, his mother a dancer. At age five he received his first drum kit. He attended the High School of Music and Art in Harlem, where he was a drummer in a jazz ensemble at school and once appeared with Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Heath. He also played with his father. Then he studied at the Berklee School of Music with Alan Dawson and at the Manhattan School of Music. During this time, he went with the bands of James Moody (1985) and Rickie Lee Jones on tour. 1988 to 1989 he worked with Roy Ayers, David Liebman and Richie Beirach. Since 1990 he was one of the bands of Mike Stern and Bob Berg, but also worked with Jim Beard, Ronnie Cuber and Eliane Elias, and with the musicians of the downtown scene. He played in an early occupation of John Zorn's Masada and in Spanish Fly with Marcus Rojas, Steven Bernstein and David Tronzo. He also went on tour with Wayne Horvitz and John Cale to the studio before him John Lurie 's Lounge Lizards brought to (Queen of All Ears ). From his own band with Adam Rogers and Fima Ephron with David Binney and David Gilmore, the band Lost Tribe, which had a lot of success in New York clubs and from 1993 grossed three albums evolved.

In 1996 he founded the Ben Perowsky trio with Chris Speed ​​and Scott Colley, with whom he performed weekly at the Knitting Factory. The eponymous album of the trio, he published in 1999 on the label JazzKey his father; one of the pieces used Hal Willner later in the movie Talladega Nights. In 2002 he went with his father and Sam Yahel into the studio to record the album Bop on Pop. His camp songs from 2003, which reflect a Jewish summer camp, was released on Tzadik and was counted in the Jazz Times about the CDs of 2003. In 2005 he toured Europe with his quartet, which included Chris Speed ​​, Ted Reichman and Drew Gress. With Speed ​​and John Medeski he also plays in Red Cred. He was also a member of Elysian Fields, played by Steven Bernstein, Dave Douglas and Don Byron Illbient and belonged since 2002 to projects of Uri Caine. Furthermore, he can be heard on recordings by Misha Mengelberg, Michael Blake, Trey Anastasio, Walter Becker, Lizz Wright, Joan As Police Woman, Hercules and Love Affair, Antony and the Johnsons and Salif Keïta. He also played with Pat Martino, John Scofield, John Cale and Vernon Reid and wrote music for the dance.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Ben Perowsky Trio ( JazzKey, 1999)
• Bop on Pop ( JazzKey, 2002)
• El Destructo Volume 1, (El Destructo Records, 2002)
• Camp Songs ( Tzadik, 2003)
• Mood Swing Orchestra (El Destructo Records / Royal Potato Family / Red, 2009)
• Esopus Opus ( Rock Records, 2009)