Tom Wilson

Tom Varner's intimate and musically direct tribute to iconic trumpeter and composer Don Cherry, exploring Cherry's concept of musical beauty through dauntless and whimsical Varner originals and Cherry masterworks.

When trumpeter Tom Browne hit the Billboard charts in 1980, one would have thought that he was an overnight sensation. However, the licensed pilot had several years under his belt working with Weldon Irvine, Sonny Fortune, and others. His debut smash single, "Funkin' for Jamaica (N.Y.)," took the music industry by storm. Between Browne's piercing horn intro and his chilling riffs in the vamp, the New York native and his cohorts lay down one jammin' groove. From the thunderous bass of Marcus Miller and Browne's trumpeting trips to the salacious vocals of Toni Smith and the colorful conversation referencing Browne, this single was slick and exhilarating.

Tom Waits collaborated with director Robert Wilson and librettist William Burroughs on the musical stage work The Black Rider in 1990. A variation on the Faust legend, the 19th century German story allowed Waits to indulge his affection for the music of Kurt Weill and address one of his favorite topics of recent years, the devil. Waits had proven an excellent collaborator when he worked with director Francis Ford Coppola on One from the Heart, making that score an integral part of the film. Here, the collaboration and the established story line served to focus Waits' often fragmented attention, lending coherence and consistency. He then had three years to adapt the score into a record album in which he did most of the singing and writing (though Burroughs contributed, singing one song and writing lyrics to three)…