Tom Schuman (born January 31, 1958) is an American pianist, smooth jazz keyboardist, the co-leader of Spyro Gyra, and an arranger. [1]
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz that became dominant in the 1980s and early 1990s.
A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more general term for a person who plays them. These keyboards include:
Spyro Gyra is an American jazz fusion band that was formed in Buffalo, New York in 1974. The band's music combines jazz, R&B, funk, and pop music. The band's name comes from Spirogyra, a genus of green algae which founder Jay Beckenstein had learned about in college. The band has released over 30 albums and sold over 10 million copies.
Schuman has been the keyboardist for Spyro Gyra since he was 17 years old (before the release of their first album). He has performed on all of Spyro Gyra's albums to date and has written or co-written over fifty Spyro Gyra compositions since the album Catching the Sun (MCA, 1980).
Catching the Sun is the third album by the American jazz group Spyro Gyra, released in 1980 on MCA Records. The album was given gold status by the RIAA on June 5, 1985.
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group, which the label was part of until its dissolution in 2003. The label's country division MCA Nashville is a still an active imprint of Universal Music Group Nashville.
