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Tom Barton

Tom sings prose and wordless music with the spirit of an instrumentalist. Featuring contemporary jazz improvisation, extended vocal techniques, and live electronic looping and effects processing, Tom’s music is adventurous, philosophical and delivered profoundly. Graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Music Performance (Honours) in 2010, Tom was invited to study a Master of Jazz voice at the Manhattan School of Music in 2013. Tom’s performance highlights include The Melbourne International Jazz Festival, The Sydney Opera House and ABC Radio National’s The Music Show.

Tom has been awarded grants including the Australia Council for the Arts Artstart, and Skills and Development, which funded professional development in NYC with vocalist and composer Theo Bleckmann.

Tom’s debut album Aspirations was released in July 2014 to critical acclaim. A 4.5-star review in The Weekend Australian heralded the album as, “a breakthrough in leading-edge jazz vocals … the arrival of a unique new talent.” Over $9000 of the album’s funding was raised by fans and supporters worldwide through the crowdfunding platform Pozible.

Aspirations was shortlisted for the 2015 Jazz Bell Awards Best Australian Jazz Vocal Album.

Tom has worked and recorded with artists including Barney McAll, Ethno Tekh, Stephen Magnusson, The RaaH Project, Gian Slater & Invenio, Andy Sugg, Philip Rex, Fran Swinn, and composers David Shea, Byron Scullin and Andrew Byrne.

After living and composing music in Yangon, Myanmar, during the first half of 2015, Tom released a new work, Connections, in late 2015. The album is a collaboration with guitarist/composer Diego Villalta and was recorded in Osaka, Japan, in May 2015 while the duo were on tour with The Hold. “Barton’s voice is a soothingly smooth tenor … always with profound expression, drawing on historic examples of jazz singers but injecting his personality and interpretations.” – The Weekend Australian

“Poetry in motion with beautifully clear-headed vocals.” – All About Jazz

“An honest musician, yes, but also a fiercely talented one.” – Australian Musician Network

Awards

'Aspirations' (2014) shortlisted for the 2015 Jazz Bell Awards Best Australian Jazz Vocal Album.


Tags

3
Album Review

Tom Barton: Wherever I Will Be

Read "Wherever I Will Be" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Australian vocalist Tom Barton's “Wherever I Will Be," released as a standalone single in September of 2020, is, at its core, a meditation on life and loss. Extremely personal, revealing lyrics that recall “a beautiful and devastating conversation" that the singer had with his mother before her passing, it's a slow and somewhat intense offering that owes as much to Barton's keen ear for effects and electro-acoustic allure as it does to his entrancing vocals and taste in tasteful bandmates—in ...

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Extended Analysis

Tom Barton & Diego Villalta: Connections

Read "Tom Barton & Diego Villalta: Connections" reviewed by Phil Barnes


There's something other worldly about this collaboration between innovative jazz vocalist Tom Barton and guitarist/composer Diego Villalta. Recorded in Osaka and inspired by the duo's experiences touring Japan the collection is wholly improvised, showcasing a broad range and variety of styles yet remaining coherent enough to suggest it could only have been this way. Barton describes it as “a free-jazz aesthetic, featuring extended vocal techniques and live looping, and electric guitar and FX" which is certainly true, if a little ...

5
Album Review

Tom Barton & Diego Villalta: Connections

Read "Connections" reviewed by Roger Farbey


This is the second album by Australian vocalist Tom Barton, the first being Aspirations (2014) and is an entirely improvised affair. On Connections Barton shares the credits with fellow countryman Diego Villalta on guitar and was recorded at Studio Osaka Recording, Osaka, Japan, whilst the pair were on tour in early 2015. Harmonium-like looped notes precede Tom Barton's wordless pellucid tenor vocals on the opening track “Trust." Any anticipation, garnered from this first offering, of the session being ...

6
Album Review

Tom Barton: Aspirations

Read "Aspirations" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Australian vocalist Tom Barton aspires to blur the lines between genres on this debut. Electronic and acoustic thoughts merge and co-exist beautifully, improvisational elements are born around concrete expressions, and in the middle of it all sits Barton, putting his poetry in motion with beautifully clear-headed vocals. While the gist of many an album can be gleaned from a single track, Aspirations doesn't work that way. If someone were to simply stumble upon Barton's take on “Spencer ...

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2

Recording

Australian Duo Tom Barton And Diego Villalta Release "Connections" – Improvisations From Japan

Australian Duo Tom Barton And Diego Villalta Release "Connections" – Improvisations From Japan

Source: Tom Barton

Innovative jazz vocalist Tom Barton has joined with guitarist/composer Diego Villalta to release an album of improvised works recorded in Osaka, Japan, in early 2015. This album is the duo’s first recording, following years of musical collaboration between the Victorian College of the Arts graduates. Connections features daring explorations into the sublime and surreal, sketched with a diversity of musical techniques and electronic experimentation. Wholly improvised, the recording was inspired by the duo’s time touring Japan. The music is a ...

Recording

Vocalist Tom Barton Transcends Jazz To Unique Sonic Worlds

Vocalist Tom Barton Transcends Jazz To Unique Sonic Worlds

Source: Tom Barton

Genre-crossing contemporary jazz vocalist/composer Tom Barton has released crowdfunded studio album, Aspirations Aspirations was recorded in early 2014 after over $9,000 was raised by fans on crowdfunding platform Pozible. The album transcends its acoustic jazz instrumentation to worlds of electronically-augmented sonic atmospheres. Tom sings original prose and wordless music pondering the self and the natural world, featuring jazz improvisation, extended vocal techniques, and live electronic looping and effects processing. The album blends genres of jazz, pop, folk, electronica and world ...

“Barton’s voice is a soothingly smooth tenor … always with profound expression, drawing on historic examples of jazz singers but injecting his personality and interpretations.” – The Weekend Australian

“Poetry in motion with beautifully clear-headed vocals.” – All About Jazz

“An honest musician, yes, but also a fiercely talented one.” – Australian Musician Network

“On Resolution, Sugg and Barton recreated Coltrane’s epic improvisation in a thrilling duo-solo, Barton’s vocalese matching Sugg’s incisive tenor phrases note for note” - The Age, 19/7/2010.

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Wherever I Will Be

Self Produced
2020

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Connections

Bartone Music
2015

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Tom Barton & Diego...

Bartone Music
2015

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Aspirations

Bartone Music
2014

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Trust

From: Connections
By Tom Barton

Videos

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