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Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin (acoustic and electric guitars), Jerry Goodman (violin), Jan Hammer (keyboards, Moog synthesizer), Rick Laird (bass) and Billy Cobham (drums, percussion). From the album Birds of Fire (1973).

In 1975 Goodman recorded jazz fusion in duo with Hammer in Like Children using overdubbing. The breakup of the Mahavishnu Orquestra affected him deeply until in 1985 he signed with the Private Music label and issued On the Future of Aviation at the height of new age music fashion. In this album he played acoustic and electric violin, acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, synthesizers and percussion with Fred Simon on piano and synthesizers, Jeffrey Vanston on more synthesizers and Phil Gratteau on drums.

Instead of a furious electric violin doing acrobatics, as jazz fusion followers would have expected, in this work individual skill is only part of the overall concept. In it we find a combination of pop, new age, jazz fusion and electronic music. In 1986 he presented Ariel in a similar vein, although this time he stands as a leader and flies with his violin over the rest of the group. In 1987 It’s Alive went on sale, featuring a concert at Park West in Chicago. Goodman also toured with his group and with Sadowfax, which played new age and electronic music.

During the 1990s and early 2000s he worked as a studio musician and his violin can be heard on more than 50 albums by performers such as rock band Styx, pop/rock duo Hall & Oates, rock keyboardist Jordan Rudess and jazz harmonist Toots Thielemans among others. In addition, he entered the world of cinema, composed the soundtrack for The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991) by the singer, writer, actress and theater producer Lily Tomlin, and contributed in the recording of music for the comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) by Frank Oz, the comedy-drama Mr. Saturday Night (1992) by Billy Crystal, the romantic comedy The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) by Michael Lehmann, and the docucomedies Waiting for Guffman (1996) and Best in Show (2000) by Christopher Guest.