My name is Tom Hartig. I’ve played other peoples’ jazz all of my adult life. Not a bad living, really. This is the jazz I hear late at night. It is not the same.
The Somnambulist is about nothing more nor less than trying to get to sleep. OK… trying to get there and stay there. Or trying to get there and stay there if it’s not too unpleasant to be there. I know you’ve been there, and I think this is what it sounded like.
The apparently disturbed man pictured on the cover is me. But I’m not disturbed at all: This is me without sleep. Me after translating insomniac compulsions into dots on paper. Me after playing those dots with various flutes, clarinets, saxophones, keyboards and the like. Might be jazz. Might not. Might be a slightly twisted version. It’s almost about sleep, it’s almost about not sleeping, it’s almost about finishing the CD already and letting my brother take a picture of me that will be on the cover even though I don’t think it really looks like me but that’s alright because I’m through with it and stuff is already printed and I paid for it and all because I want you to listen to my music or maybe even buy it.
Tom Hartig Bio
A native of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Tom started his musical career as a clarinetist in the Cleveland Elementary School Band. Reviews from that period have been lost to history. As his career progressed, Tom gained proficiency in saxophones, flutes and keyboards.
After studies at Augustana College and North Texas State University, Tom began a road career in various ensembles with repertoires ranging from jazz (he’d rather eat) to disco (he’d rather forget.) Leaving the road for an actual house, he settled in Omaha, where he joined his brothers in film production while maintaining his musical chops on the side. A noted highlight of this period was scoring the music for the feature length sci fi movie, A Conversation with an Alien.
In the decades since, Tom’s skill with multiple instruments has earned him a stand on the touring shows of Johnny Mathis, Mel Torme, Tony Orlando, The Temptations, Lionel Hampton, Gunther Schuller, The Four Tops, Shari Lewis and Lambchop, Dick Contino, George Jones, Marie Osmond, The Shirrells, Bo Diddley, Mickey Rooney, Robert Goulet, Michael Feinstein, Eartha Kitt, Manhattan Transfer, Three Dog Night, Rosemary Clooney, Olivia Newton-John, Frank Sinatra Jr., The Supremes and many more.
Tom’s Omaha work continues with performances in local jazz and rock acts, as well as recordings with Mannheim Steamroller and regular appearances with the Omaha Symphony and pit work with Broadway touring companies.
His first solo CD When No Sound Follows was released in 2003. The Somnambulist, solo project #2, was released in the Spring of 2008. Right this minute Tom is a video producer with American Gramaphone Records. He is married and still lives in the house in Omaha
Read more...