Tom Varner

Thomas " Tom" Varner ( born June 17, 1957 in Morristown, New Jersey) is an American jazz horn player, arranger and composer of avant-garde jazz.

Life

Tom Varner first learned at the age of ten years of piano and learned during his school days the game on the French horn when he discovered jazz and especially Julius Watkins as a model for themselves. He completed his musical studies in 1979 at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he among other things, had studied with Ran Blake, George Russell and Jaki Byard and earned a Master's degree in 2005 at the City College of New York. In Boston he had a quartet in 1978, the Ed Jackson was a member, and played tracks from Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman as well as his own compositions.

Varner moved in 1979 to New York and then worked in the 1980s and 1990s with numerous musicians in the local jazz scene such as Dave Liebman, John Zorn, Bobby Watson, Miles Davis / Quincy Jones, Bobby Previte, Jim McNeely, McCoy Tyner, but also with Steve Lacy, George Gruntz or La Monte Young and worked on over 70 albums. He took since the early 1980s, a number of albums under his own name, where musicians such as Steve Wilson, Tony Malaby, Ed Jackson, Ellery Eskelin, Tom Rainey, Cameron Brown, Drew Gress, Matt Wilson, Kenny Barron, Victor Lewis, Fred Hopkins and Billy Hart participated. With Rich Rothenberg and Jim Hartog ( from the 29th Street Saxophone Quartet ), he formed the East Down Septet lineup and recorded the album Out of Gridlock in 1994, in which he proves to role models like Bob Brookmeyer and Julius Watkins reverence. In his compositions Varner processed influences among others by Charles Mingus, but also those of the European avant-garde composer Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Tom Varner lives in Seattle since 2005.

Awards

Varner was listed in Critics Poll ( poll ) Downbeat annually among the top ten musicians of his instrument. He also received numerous awards, such as the National Endowment for the Arts. His albums The Mystery of Compassion, Martian Heartache, The Window Up Above and Second Communion were awarded by Richard Cook and Brian Morton with the highest rating of four stars.

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