Chris Greene Quartet -][- A GROUP EFFORT – [Single Malt Recordings, 2012 | Review] –

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Chris Greene, Composer, Damian Espinosa, Educator, Marc Piane, Saxophonist, Steve Corley

Chris Greene Quartet, A GROUP EFFORT

Chris Greene Quartet -][- A GROUP EFFORT –Mp3– [Single Malt Recordings, 2012 | Review] –

It’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure to immerse myself into one the most preeminent, funky, soulful voices in modern jazz saxophonist, composer and producer Chris Greene. It’s not by accident the Evanston, IL native meticulously fuses every strand of his being into the heart, body and soul of this music amplified through conduit of his latest project simply titled “A GROUP EFFORT.”

Chris Greene Quartet -][- MERGE and Soul & Science 2 [Single Malt Recordings]

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African American, Chris Greene, Jazz, Saxophone

Chris Greene Quartet - Merge (2009)

Chris Greene Quartet -][- MERGE & – [Single Malt Recordings, 2009 & 2008]

Thirty-something-year-old Chicago-based saxophonist, composer and bandleader Chris Greene is no overnight sensation. He has paid his dues on the Chicago club scene since the early 90’s, playing in bands like The Trippin’ Billies and Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six, and freelanced on the city’s rich jazz scene. He studied at Indiana University, home of one of the country’s strongest Jazz Studies Programs, and formed his first band, Chris Greene and New Perspective, in 1994. That band performed regularly, and released two albums of what Greene calls “electric jazz/funk/hip-hop/fusion” music, “On The Verge” (1998) and “jazz” (2004). In 2005 he formed his current unit, The Chris Greene Quartet (or “CGQ”), a band that has maintained a stable roster since its inception.

CGQ features Greene on tenor and soprano saxophone, Damian Espinosa on primarily acoustic piano (but also occasionally on electric keyboard), Marc Piane on acoustic bass and drummer Tyrone Blair. The CGQ has forged a unique sonic identity through the immediate personal chemistry these four remarkable musicians discovered when they first played together, and through subsequent steady work. In many ways, as Greene designed the band to be, they are a throwback to the classic Blue Note label jazz units – bands that featured stable personnel, hard-swinging and thought-provoking music, with a sensibility that was at one time rooted in the popular culture but was very definitely high-concept art; in other words, music for both body and mind. —Chris Greene | BIOGRAPHY