Tom Richeson

Tom Richeson is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where he served as Jazz Studies Coordinator for 20 years. As a trumpeter and/or playing a MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) wind controller he’s performed with many jazz artists, including Pharoah Sanders, Stan Samole, Art Porter, Charles Thomas, Maasej Kovačević, Ted Ludwig, Stefano Sabatini, Jack Coker, Jerry Coker, Bill Scarlett, Gene Rush, Mark Boling, Donald Brown, Jim Self, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald (with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra) and on tours with many pop groups, including The Jacksons, Diana Ross, Lou Rawls, and The O’Jays. He also toured with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and with the Charlie Spivak Orchestra. In academic settings he’s performed with many jazz artists, most notably, Jack DeJohnette, Maria Schneider, Gary Foster, Carl Fontana, Victor Wooten, Alvin Batiste, and Airto Moriera. Honors include induction into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame (2014), Visiting Professorships at Qingdao and Binzhou Universities in China (2014), and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Fellowship (1986).

He was the first guest student instrumentalist to ever appear with the United States Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. (1969). Tom is the lead author of The Mystery of Music, 2012 McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions. Recordings include Goose Bumps (1991), A Tribute to Jerry Coker (2005) and Jazz Tracks (2014). His Jazz Tracks album was reviewed at www.allaboutjazz.com by C. Michael Bailey and received a rating of 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.

“I have traveled internationally for decades and have finally found the perfectly indestructible yet functionally easy to use case. I won’t use any other case for my trumpets or wind controllers. Torpedo Bags are simply the best!” — Tom Richeson.

Tom depends on his Torpedo Bag Classic.