Tom was born in Oakdale, California, on October 3rd, 1971. When he was four, Tom's parents, Carol and Warren, bought a player piano for the home, and sourced rolls of classical rags at flea markets and antique stores. Scarcely able to reach the pedals, Tom gradually became obsessed with playing rolls, and the fascination of the tunes on these rhythmic, bouncy rolls led Tom to start playing on the keys to replicate what had been played by the rolls. Recognizing his innate talent, his parents soon found a piano teacher to nurture his interest. Tom took lessons for eight years, but he was never allowed to play ragtime by his lady teacher – she made certain his lessons were well rounded and his musical development was therefore classical in nature.
After just a year of lessons, 6-year-old Tom composed his first complete ragtime work. He had an exciting childhood filled with practice, recitals and competitions. Tom fell in love with the syncopated rhythms and bouncing momentum of ragtime piano and poured his heart into mastering the complex genre, relishing the creativity and technical challenge it represented. Some performers compose and some composers perform, but very few do both equally well. One of Tom’s great talents was that his skills in both were equally impressive.
By the age of eleven Tom had already written over twenty original ragtime compositions, and audiences were blown away at ragtime festivals with his precocious talent and deep musical knowledge. When Tom was fourteen, he played in the “Pianorama”, a concert which was part of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee.
Throughout his teenage years in the 1980s, Tom became deeply involved in societies and festivals celebrating ragtime music. He attended meetings of the Sacramento Ragtime Society where he impressed seasoned ragtime veterans. Tom also performed at the prestigious West Coast Ragtime Festival as a featured young talent. His technical skill and mature musicality on while playing complex ragtime works belied his young age. Tom's natural talent and devoted study of ragtime piano would serve as the foundation for his later popular success.
The hallmark of Tom's piano-playing style is an aggressive left hand that attacks the lower half of the piano keyboard in staccato, machine-gun-like octave passages. He alternates these voicings with a variety of other sounds: walking bass ("boogie"), single-note figures, and widely-spaced chords – often both arpeggiated and unarpeggiated tenths. As he matured Tom’s playing and composing became more complex and intriguing. For the most part Tom wrote for his own amusement and this makes it difficult for many players to capture the essence of his compositions.
While devoting much of his attention to ragtime music, Tom graduated from Oakdale High School where he was one of top four students and was salutatorian of his class. He attended the State University at Turlock, obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1993. Following college, Tom worked for the County of Merced (California) as a computer programmer. A few years later, he went to work for his college friend, Jerry Gray, at the County of Sacramento in Sacramento. Tom was as good a computer programmer as he was a ragtime pianist and composer.
In the 2000s, Tom’s reputation expanded from the ragtime world to the internet at large through his relationship with Ron O’Dell. Ron met Tom in 1992 at the Monterey Bay Ragtime Festival and showed him some of his own incomplete handwritten compositions. The following year Tom presented Ron with typeset scores of them and performed two of them in a set. Scott Kirby was sufficiently impressed to request to hear one of them again in a later set. For over 20 years Ron posted videos of Tom’s performances and his amazing sight-reading ability on his youtube channel (Keeper 1st).
Later Tom's adaptations of video game soundtracks made him a viral sensation. Through his dazzling piano covers of video game soundtracks, Tom carved out a unique niche at the intersection of classical ragtime, internet remix culture and gaming fandom. The sheer enthusiasm and infectious energy Tom brought to the keyboard earned him devoted fans across the internet. His "prioritized" versions took familiar 8-bit tunes and transformed them into fast-paced, harmonically rich rags. Adding improvised embellishments and ornamentation, Tom gave new energy to songs from Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing and many more games.
Tom's flair for spontaneous rearrangement amazed viewers, as did his sheer technical skill and incredible sight-reading ability. His playful yet precision-perfect covers required immense coordination. Tom was especially known for his ability to sight-read absolutely anything. Pianists would bring difficult pieces to Tom to try to stump him. Invariably, he would play it pretty much as written the first time through and then expand and improvise on it the second time through.
There are many other sides to Tom. He transcribed music, encouraged young players and performed at innumerable festivals. He gave generously of his knowledge and shared his magnificent collection of sheet music with fellow enthusiasts. He was the major contributor to A RAGTIME COMPENDIUM, a listing of known ragtime tunes, with 17 revisions over an 18 year time frame. His only overseas trip was a short visit to New Zealand and Australia in 2015 when he played at selected Jazz Clubs. Tom was the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2023 Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia.
On August 6, 2016, Tom was stopped in a line of cars waiting to enter a highway when his car was violently struck from behind by a speeding truck. The California Highway Patrol is reported to have said that the truck hit his car going between 50-60 mph. The devastating crash left Tom unconscious. He was extracted from the crushed car through a window. In the days following the accident, fans and fellow musicians feared the worst as he was on life support in the Intensive Care Unit.
Miraculously, he clung to life, although the extent of the damage remained uncertain. After discharge from the hospital, Tom was transferred to a nursing facility in Lodi, California where he remained unconscious for two and half months. It was many months before the full extent of his injuries were determined. There was partial paralysis of his right side as well as inability to speak due to injury to the brain’s speech center.
Tom spent a further four and a half years in that nursing facility followed by six months in a rehabilitation center in Bakersfield, California. Unfortunately, Tom remained unable to walk, speak or use his right hand very well. He now lives with his parents in Oakdale, California.
Through his compositions, albums, and YouTube videos, Tom has inspired legions of pianists and game music fans worldwide. He has influenced a generation of musicians to experiment with improvisation and sight reading. He pushed other performers, including those in groups he played with, to do things they didn’t know they could do, and he brought out the best performance in each collaboration. His incredible talent makes him the Mozart of Ragtime.