Tommy Turrentine was born April 22, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His most significant early gigs came with the Benny Carter big band (1946-1948) and George Hudson's Orchestra, followed by Earl Bostic (1952-1955) and Charles Mingus (1956), whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, in addition to further big-band work with Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie.

He received his most significant recognition playing alongside his younger brother, saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, during a well-documented stint with drummer Max Roach's group from 1959 to 1960, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile. In the early 1960s he recorded his sole session as a leader, for the Time label, and appeared as a sideman on dates led by Horace Parlan, Jackie McLean, Sonny Clark, Lou Donaldson, and his brother Stanley, before retiring from music and largely fading from public view.

Turrentine died May 13, 1997, in New York City, of cancer, at age 69.

Turrentine's swing- and hard-bop-rooted trumpet playing, honed across major big bands and cemented by his stint alongside Max Roach, made him a respected sideman voice of the era even as his own leader output remained limited to a single session, his career overshadowed in later decades by that of his more famous younger brother.