About Tom Raines

Tom Raines started learning piano at a young age and moved on to percussion in middle school.  Throughout his public-school career, he performed with percussion ensembles, concert bands, and marching bands.  

He continued his education at University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) where he performed with the concert band, orchestra, jazz band, percussion ensembles, and marimba quartet.  He also started gigging regularly with local variety bands, blues bands, The Frontera Jazz Quartet, and other groups.  He has performed at the Brownsville Latin Jazz Festival many times with his own and other groups.  

While attending UTB, he also began his teaching career at Little Mozart Academy (as a drum set and piano instructor). He developed his own teaching method of writing songs for students and “jamming” with them on piano.  He graduated from UTB in 2012 with a Bachelors of Music Education.  Afterwards, he attended graduate school at Texas State University in San Marcos.

At Texas state, he performed regularly with the Jazz Band and Combo.  He also began gigging in the central Texas area with different blues and jazz groups and taught private lessons at Oak Run Middle School.

Tom Graduated from Texas State in 2015 with a Master of Music in Jazz Performance and has since been a full-time musician and teacher; He currently performs in many different groups in Austin, including Donovan Keith, Soul Wagon, Joe Caruso, and Funkotron.