Artist Bios
Chris Collins
Chris Collins is a professional jazz woodwind player who has toured throughout Japan, South Africa, Europe and North America as the leader of his own ensembles and as a featured soloist. In the past year Collins has performed his original works in 7 countries on 4 continents.He has played professionally with artists including the Phil Collins Big Band, Doc Severenson, Mel Torme, Michael Fienstien, Rob McConnel, Lou Rawls and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Chris has performed at jazz festivals including: Cork, Ireland, Montreux-Switzerland, Pori, Nice, North Sea, and Glasgow. His most recent Cd release “Jazz From The Shamrock Shore” (Harriett Jazz/ASCAP) features extended compositions which artistically combine the instrumentation, musical vocabulary and repertoire of the Irish folk tradition with American Jazz. In addition to his work on commercial recordings and film soundtracks, including the soundtrack for the award winning Paramount Pictures release "The Big Night", Chris's jazz solo work can be heard on the CD releases: "Urban Solitude" - Chris Collins Quartet (Harriett Jazz), "A Hot Night In Paris" - The Phil Collins Big Band (Atlantic), “A Time To Mourn, A Time To Dance” (Harriett Jazz/ ASCAP) and "Watching For Watchung Plaza" - The John Cooper Quintet. Collins' work has received recognition from Billboard Magazine, Downbeat Magazine, Detroit Jazz Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit news, The Hennesey Jazz Competition, and the International Association of Jazz Educators.
Chris is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan. Chris has presented numerous workshops around the world including presentations at The South African Jazz Educators conference - Durbin, Capetown, and Grahamstown, South Africa, The University of Strathclyde - Glasgow, Scotland, The Big Band Club - Kita Kyushu, Japan, and at numerous U.S. I.A.J.E. conferences on topics including jazz saxophone/improvisation and distance jazz education. He has also contributed several articles to the Jazz Educators Journal including a recent cover story on Joe Lovano and Joe Zawinul.
Emanuele Cisi
Cisi began using the alto saxophone at the age of sixteen taking private lessons, continuing thereafter with as a self-taught musician. Two years later he dropped the alto saxophone for the tenor and the soprano. He then partook in several seminars with important Italian musicians and, in 1986, with Michael Breker. At nineteen years of age he began his professional carrier playing with different musicians from the area of Turin, at twenty-one he was called to take part in a historical reformed group called "Area", his first important booking which then put him in the spot light nationwide leading to the participation in tours, festivals, broadcasting programmes and also in he recording of an album.
From 1990 to 1998 Emanuele moved to Milan where he started new and lasting collaborations with, among others, Antonio FaraÚ Luigi Bonafede, Massimo Colombo; in 1994 he set up the first quartet in his name with Paolo Birro, Marco Micheli, Francesco Sotgiu and he recorded his first album in his name thanks to which, in January 1995, he won the "Top Jazz" critic poll and was described by the magazine Musica Jazz, as "Best new talent". From 1996 his activity abroad intensified, especially in Paris where he played regularly in the pianist Jean Pierre Como's group, with whom he recorded the album un disco per le Blue Note. He also began collaborating with the Swiss drummer Daniel Humair.
In 1996 Emanuele founded, together with Luigi Bonafede, The Five for Jazz, with Flavio Boltro, Francesco Sotgiu and Rosario Bonaccorso, and with them recorded an album. His name appeared once again in "Top Jazz" of January 1997: as one of the ten Italian musicians and his CD a duo with Paolo Birro "May Day" is one of the ten albums of the year. From 1999 he played more and more in France and abroad also performing on tour in China in July '99 (1? Heineken Beat of Beijing).
In October of 2000 Emanuele released his first album in his name in France with, among others, Aldo Romano and Paolo Fresu, an album that immediately received considerable recognition from "Jazz up" of Radio Paris and a "Coup de Coeur" from the television chain Muzik. In 2001 the album "Hidden Songs" received appraisal in France and the influential weekly paper "TËlËrama" listed it as one of the best CDs of the year (from the distinguished music critic Michel Contat). In between 1999 and 2001 Emanuele performed in various international bands: as a duo with Paolo Birro, as a trio with the Swiss drummer Daniel Humair and Paolino Dalla Porta, as a trio with the Slovenian Zlatko Kaucic and Nicola Muresu and as a the leader of a quartet with the Belgian pianist Nathalie Loriers, Remy Vignolo, Aldo Romano, and with the Vietnamese guitarist N'Guyen Le, and Michel Benita. In the year 2000 he formed, with the pianist Stefano Battaglia, the group "Changes", together with Piero Leveratto and Fabrizio Sferra, with whom he recorded an album and performed with in Italy, France and Belgium.
From 2001 to 2004 Emanuele carried out intense concert performances at a high international levels. From September 2001 up until today (2004) he is a soloist in the French drummer Aldo Romano's group "Because of Bechet", with Emmanuel Bex, Remi Vignolo, and Francesco Bearzatti. With this group he released an album for Universal and participated in over seventy concerts, playing in shows all over France, performing on the most prestigious of transalpine stages and also organizing a tour, in October 2004, on Reunion Island, in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile he collaborates, with continuity, in various bands directed by the French bassist Jean Marc Jafet, with Paul Ceccarelli, Robert Persi, Christian EscoudÈ, Babik Reinardht, Marcia Maria and others, and in a quintet with the French trumpet player Francois Chassagnite with whom he has been invited, for two consecutive years now, to the important festival of Marciac.
Since 2002 Emanuele has been playing in a trio with the Slovenian drummer Zlatko Kaucic and Nicola Muresu and with them he has been on several tours in both Slovenia and Italy. In 2004 Emanuele founded a new Italo-French quartet in his name, with Paolo Birro, Yoann Serra and Simone Monnanni, with them recorded a new album in Antibes.
In 2005 Emanuele is called to be part of the roman pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's group , participating, in one of many, to the "Fellini Jazz" project holding concerts in Paris and in other main Italian festivals.
Emanuele Cisi New Quartet is now the band he records and plays with: four musicians with different experiences and musical backgrounds express their own personality with a common feeling and sense of art. The new abum is now recorded and will be out soon.