Charlie Perez is a locally acclaimed musician, educator and advocate of local culture.  He is Houston’s only percussionist/artist to perform several musical genres from New Orleans rooted Jazz to the modern Jazz of today as well as salsa/Merengue to traditional Brazilian Samba.  Every week Charlie performs with amazing musicians and mingles with music enthusiasts from multiple cultural backgrounds and languages.

In 2009 Charlie was invited to teach a drum workshop in Villa Allancia, a favela in northern Rio de Janeiro. 

Projeto Ponto BR - Percu'Som

Charlie’s artistic journey began when he attended the nationally acclaimed High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), Where he thrived in the visual arts department.  At the age of 17 he was showing and selling art in eclectic establishments like the River Oaks ‘speak easy’ Marfellas’s.  He free-lanced as a photographer and worked for a local periodical, Viva Magazine, a weekly supplement of the Houston Post.

After high school, Charlie made the creative switch to percussion and later went to the University of Houston where his love for other cultures guided him to study Anthropology with an emphasis on Ethno-Musicology.   He continues his musical education and enriched his life by traveling to 16 countries in the past decade.  

Through his exposure to the world’s music and his cultural inheritance he has developed a wide musical knowledge and keen rhythmic instinct.  Charlie’s amazing talent is represented best in his frequent performances where he can be seen playing everything from a modern jazz drum set to various Latin percussion instruments.  He has become a dominant presence in the local music scene as a bandleader, session musician, and talent agent.  He has recorded with local artists in a range of styles such as Afro-pop, Bossa Nova, Hip-Hop, Jazz and Salsa. 

Some of Charlie’s notable performances as a side man include a 2011 Germany tour with Persian songstress Ziba Shirazi, the 2010 Trinity Jazz Festival with Latin Jazz great Nestor Torres and the 2008 Latin Grammy’s with  Grammy Award winning R&B artist, John Legend and Columbian pop start Jaunes.  He has also been fortunate to share the stage with amazing artist like Jamie Cullum, New York guitarist Mike Moreno, bassist, sing/songwriter Alan Hampton, Tito Puente Jr., the Larry Harlow Orchestra and Carlos Garnett.

Charlie will debut his own album in 2012.