About

Thomas Call was born and raised in Bountiful, Utah. He began piano lessons at the age of eight, picked up the trombone at age 12, and has been playing music ever since. He attended Utah State University and played lead trombone in their top Jazz ensemble on their album ‘Europa’ which won a Downbeat award, and also played in the “Caine Jazz Combo” scholarship small group.

He began writing music in earnest upon transferring to the University of Utah and has written over 70 original compositions between beginning there in 2014. In the summer of 2016, he formed the Tom Call Sextet with fellow jazz students and alumni of the U of U jazz program. In December of that year, they released their first album, “The Cosmere Project”, which consists of original songs inspired by the writings of Tom’s favorite fantasy author. In 2016, he won the Big 12 Trombone Composition Competition, with his original piece entitled “Look at Nothing, See Everything” arranged for 5 trombones and rhythm section, and 2017 he won the Night Star Jazz Orchestra composer contest, for his piece “Tatsu”.  In 2019, Tom received an honorable mention in the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers contest for his composition “Pressure”.

In the spring of 2019, he graduated from NYU with a master’s degree in jazz studies. During his time there, he performed with Joe Lovano, Alan Ferber, Alex Sipiagin, Mike Maineri, Lenny Pickett, Dave Pietro, Mike Rodriguez, Brad Shepik, and others. Additionally, multiple of Tom’s works for Jazz Ensemble were premiered at the Blue Note jazz club and the Frederick Lowe theater in the East Village. In April of 2019, he founded The Process Big Band and premiered his works for large jazz ensemble at Shape Shifter Lab in Brooklyn. 

Tom’s music draws from a wide range of influences, stretching from modern jazz artists like Marshall Gilkes, Dave Holland, Robin Eubanks, and Bob Brookmeyer, to groups like Less Than Jake, Streetlight Manifesto, and Four Year Strong. His musical style has been called “unmistakably Tom” and is what he would call high–energy impressionism. 

His next project is a recording of original compositions for small group, featuring Alex Sipiagin and David Pietro, entitled “Connections”. The project was recorded at Dolan Studio in New York City, and is currently in post-production. Tom’s website is under construction, but for more information about this project, his large ensemble compositions, and other musical updates, follow Tom at @tomcallmusic on Instagram, and on facebook at facebook.com/tomcallmusic