Tony Gorruso (Frank Sinatra Orchestra // Buddy Rich Big Band // NYC Session Artist)
The son of Anthony Gorruso Sr., a high school band director, Tony began his professional career playing at age 17 with the local Buffalo area band Spyro Gyra on their eponymous first LP “Spyro Gyra”. His name is incorrectly listed on that album as Tony Garusso. From 1979 to 1983, he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston to further pursue his interest in jazz and big band music as an arranging major.
Tony has since performed with Buddy Rich, Frank Sinatra, Sting, Tony Bennett, Clark Terry, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., The Duke Ellington Orchestra (under the direction of Mercer Ellington), Ray Charles, Liza Minnelli and many others. He has recorded with Frank Sinatra on the album “Sinatra in Japan 1985” (which also aired on PBS in 1986), “Sinatra’s 80th Live in Concert”, and the recently released “Sinatra: Live at the Meadowlands” (recorded live at was was then the Brendan Byrnes Sports Arena in 1986).
Tony can also be found on albums such as Jon Lucien’s “Mother Nature’s Son”, Mary Ellen Bernard’s “Point of Departure”, Mercer Ellington’s “Music Is My Mistress”, David Sanborn’s Pearls, and Kanye West’s 2010 multi Grammy Award winning and platinum selling album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Tony performed from February 2005 to January 2009 as 2nd Trumpet for the Broadway show “Spamalot” and was 1st Trumpet on the Broadway show “42nd Street” (2002 - 2005). He also played 1st Trumpet on the 1989 Broadway revival of the show “Gypsy”, and was featured on the soundtrack of the 1989 Wood Allen film “Crimes and Misdemeanours”.
Tony played Lead Trumpet for both Buddy Rich from January - December 1984 and Frank Sinatra from January 1985 - July 1991. Since then, he has performed on hundreds of national radio and TV jingles.
After completing over six and a half years on the road with Sinatra, Tony continued as 2nd Trumpet for the complete 10 year run of Miss Saigon on Broadway (1991 - 2001), this despite suffering a severe upper lip injury in 1998 which nearly ended his career. He fully recovered and is currently an active musician on Broadway shows and the NYC recording scene.
He currently resides in Northern New Jersey.
