Tom Schuman was born January 31, 1958, and joined Spyro Gyra as a teenager, performing on the band's self-titled 1977 debut. When co-founder Jeremy Wall left the touring lineup in 1978, Schuman, then still a teenager, became the group's sole keyboardist, a chair he would hold, uninterrupted, for the next 45 years. He wrote or co-wrote more than sixty Spyro Gyra compositions beginning with 1980's Catching the Sun, becoming central to the band's writing identity. The band's own story is told in full in Spyro Gyra's JazzProfiles.com profile.

Schuman remained with Spyro Gyra through all 13 of the band's Grammy nominations and its full studio catalog, departing at the end of 2023 to relocate to Europe; he was replaced by keyboardist Chris Fischer. He released his own solo album, I Am Schuman, in 2024, the year after stepping away from the band that had defined nearly his entire musical career up to that point.

Schuman's keyboard work, developed from his teenage years inside Spyro Gyra's evolving jazz-funk sound, anchored the band's writing and arranging for four and a half decades, one of the longest continuous tenures of any musician in crossover jazz.