John Fumo attended the New England Conservatory of Music, and moved to Los Angeles in 1978. He worked with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, met multireedist Vinny Golia, and recorded both as a sideman and a leader (1986's After The Fact) for Golia's Nine Winds label (an association that continues up to this day), displaying a highly original and spirited style on trumpet.

Since that time, he has appeared on dozen's of film scores and recorded with a remarkably wide variety of artists including Tito Puente, Neil Young, Brian Setzer, Brian McKnight, Dianne Reeves, Faith Hill, James Brown, Tower of Power, U2, Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, Lou Rawls, K.D. Lang, Babyface, Al Jarreau, Bon Jovi, Neil Diamond (with whom he extensively toured in 2006) and pianist George Kahn. In addition, he teaches jazz trumpet at Cal Arts.