Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and musicologist Jeff Peretz is an Associate Arts Professor and Music Director at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he coordinates the Musicianship and Songwriting areas of the curriculum. His books include Zen and the Art of Guitar, Guitar Atlas: Cuba, and Guitar Atlas: The Middle East. He also contributed musical analysis to the New York Times bestseller Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm.
Jeff has composed music for television, film, and stage and has performed and/or recorded with American Ballet Theatre, Mark Ronson, Lana Del Rey, Jay-Z, Rockwilder, Corinne Bailey Rae, Tim Robbins, and Stanley Clarke, among others.
As Michael J. Fox’s personal guitar coach for more than 20 years, Jeff has played a key role in preparing, arranging, and directing Fox’s performances for the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s annual benefit, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cure. Most recently, he coached Fox for his moving performance with Coldplay at the 2024 Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom.
Recognized as “America’s Pop Musicologist,” Jeff has appeared as an expert on music theory and copyright on BBC, CNN, NPR, Bloomberg Television, and MSNBC, and has been featured in The Fader, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone.
