Coming up on Saturday July 24th at Tula's, Seattle: Tom Varner/David Marriot/Thomas Marriot: 3 Brass Plus Rhythm, new looks at the music of Wayne Shorter!
And on Saturday August 7, Good Shepherd Chapel , Wallingford, Seattle: Tom
Varner Quintet, featuring Eric Barber and Byron Vannoy, New Works and Summer
Meditations
Heaven and Hell, Tom's new CD, is now out! Click here for lots of info and a discount (put 'heaven' in the promo code).
Julius Watkins Jazz French Horn Festival! After a ten-year break, the 6th one was held in Seattle on October 3, 2009-Tom Varner, John Clark, Vincent Chancey, Adam Unsworth, and more! A great success. Read more at: www.cornish.edu/music/watkins, and an Earshot piece on the event is at www.earshot.org/Publication/pub/09september.pdf, page 9.
Tom Varner Tentet-OmniTone cd release celebration! Tom's performance
of his new work and cd Heaven and Hell, was at Seattle's Earshot Jazz Festival,
Good Shepherd Chapel in Wallingford, October 29, 2009. An Earshot 2008 interview
about the piece, from the time of its premiere and recording, is at www.earshot.org/Publication/pub/08april.pdf
, on page 8. This concert featured NY trumpet master Russ Johnson, and Seattleites
Mark Taylor, Eric Barber, Byron Vannoy, and more.
In Fall 2005, Tom Varner moved to Seattle with his wife Terri and kids Jack and Hope. Read about the move — and a lot more — at January '05 Earshot Jazz newsletter [5 pages].
What the critics say...
"More
than ever, Varner's warmly expansive but tough-edged playing rescues the
French horn from the "miscellaneous" instrument category. The
voice of conscience on Heaven and Hell, he also bestows its greatest
pleasures." - Lloyd Sachs, Downbeat-
"On Swimming, 'Strident' is one of the most amazing things Varner has done, aggressive and bordering on the funky. We missed it before, but this must be one of Varner's best records, possibly the best of all." - Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 2009
-
"If a young Duke Ellington were writing 'Harlem Airshaft' today,
it might sound something like this disjunctive, spirited and humorous
15-part mental soundtrack of urban living by the brilliant French horn
player, composer and arranger Tom Varner. What a complex, delicious
suite!" - Paul de Barros Downbeat
- "The French horn in contemporary jazz is Tom Varner." - Berendt/Huesmann, The Jazz Book
- "Varner is the most convincing jazz French horn player I've ever heard." - CD Review
- "Varner's smooth lines not only close the gap that Julius Watkins left behind; they establish, finally, the French horn as a solo instrument for contemporary jazz."- Jazz Podium
- "Tom Varner turned in the most inspiring set. Breaking up bebop phrases with long melody notes, Varner is now at the point where his lines, complicated but logical, hurtle to their destiny."- Peter Watrous, The New York Times