Todd Perlmutter
Creative Development Music Director

“It takes talent to play with another drummer because that’s an unusual situation. Your technical skill level doesn’t have to be astronomical. Your musical level has to be astronomical.”

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“Mutter” as he likes to be known, grew up in New York and spent ten formative years in Boston playing in various rock bands. “I was performing in a group called Orangutang and producing some locals acts when I came in contact with Blue Man Group,” he says. He started out as the kit player in the Boston Blue Man show. A couple years into that stint, a great opportunity appeared when Blue Man Group decided to move into the recording realm. “I told them if they wanted to produce a CD of their show, I could help.” Todd produced both Blue Man Group’s debut Audio and follow up The Complex. He currently acts as Music Supervisor for all new creative Blue Man projects. “The gig of Blue Man musician is designed to move you; connect you to something bigger than yourself.”

Jeff Quay
Associate Music Director

“When individuals come in for auditions, I try and make them as comfortable as possible so their authentic personality can come out.”

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Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, Jeff has been drumming for 35 years. He spent his childhood listening to eclectic music, turned onto the rock, pop and jazz icons of the day by his older sibling. “I saw the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers in second grade, thanks to my brother,” he recalls fondly. “I started playing in bands in high school and haven’t had a real job since I was 23. I moved down to Miami in the 80's and was schooled by Eddie Harris, an ass-kicking jazz guy. Later on, I toured with Expose, Julio Iglesias and the Bee Gees. The best fun was my Dead cover band, The Zen Tricksters. In ’94, I had a friend who knew Ian Pai (original Blue Man Group drummer) and I got an audition as the Blue Man back-up drummer. I got the gig when we opened in Boston and had a blast there for two years. When the show went to Chicago, I made the move.” Jeff sits on the kit, providing the pulse behind the Blue Men and has a voice in the musical direction of all the Blue Man shows.

Having taken one of the most bizarre routes to Blue Man of anyone in the company, Byron was born in St. Louis, moved to San Diego in his early teens, relocated to New York City, then returned to California for two years after which he spent one year in Minnesota before returning to Manhattan in 1993 where he’s been ever since, with the exception of a six month stint in Berlin, Germany. “I went to Deep Springs College in the white mountains bordering the Mojave Desert for two years,” he recalls. “It was a school/ranch of 25 kids, all males, sort of a Monastic hippie experiment.” Byron ended up receiving his undergraduate degree from Yale in Philosophy. He grew up playing piano and guitar but gravitated toward the six string when "piano got too hard." The guitar was his link to Blue Man Group. He was playing in a band and working at Phillip Glass’s recording studio when original Blue Men, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton, came in to inquire about making a record based on their Astor Place show. “I hit it off with Ian Pai and Larry Heinemann – Blue Man Group’s original Chapman Stick player – and expressed my interest in playing the stick; an instrument I found rather fascinating. I’ve been playing the stick in the New York show ever since.” In 2002, Byron took on the role of Associate Music Director that involves traveling to all Blue Man shows to maintain the musical aesthetic. He also contributes to the musician casting and training process.