Jerry Goodman

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Jerry Goodman (Chicago, Illinois, March 16, 1949) is an American violinist best known for playing electrically amplified violin in the bands The Flock and the jazz fusion Mahavishnu Orchestra. Goodman actually began his musical career as The Flock's roadie before joining the band on violin.

After his 1970 appearance on John McLaughlin's album My Goal's Beyond, he became a member of McLaughlin's original Mahavishnu Orchestra lineup until the band broke up in 1973, and was viewed as a soloist of equal virtuosity to McLaughlin and drummer Billy Cobham.

In 1975, after Mahavishnu, Goodman recorded the album Like Children with Mahavishnu keyboard alumnus Jan Hammer. Starting in 1985 he recorded three solo albums for Private Music -- On the Future of Aviation, Ariel, and the live album It's Alive -- and went on tour with his own band, as well as with Shadowfax and The Dixie Dregs. He scored Lily Tomlin's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe and is the featured violinist on numerous film soundtracks, including Billy Crystal's Mr. Saturday Night. His violin can be heard on more than fifty albums from artists ranging from Toots Thielemans to Hall & Oates to Styx to Jordan Rudess to Derek Sherinian. Goodman has appeared on keyboardist Sherinian's last four solo records - Inertia (2001), Black Utopia (2003), Mythology (2004), and Blood of the Snake (2006)

After an absence from the public eye in live concert, he appeared on Gary Husband’s Force Majeure: Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2005, and even more recently, played with the San Diego based fusion group Hectic Watermelon.