Chris Greene Quartet

As soon as the Chris Greene Quartet takes the stage, jazz and rock audiences alike notice something different – something besides the fact that they’re seated next to each other. The jazz crowd can’t help but sense the charisma and electricity, not always seen in a jazz band, that emanates from the quartet even during the saxophonist’s most committed solos. And those fans accustomed to the high energy and loose hi-jinks of a rock band suddenly find themselves diving deeper into improvised music than they might have thought possible. At a time when jazz continues to seek new audiences, the Chris Greene Quartet sits poised on the future’s cusp. In much the way that classical composers have historically used native folk elements as the basis for their art, the CGQ uses familiar modern materials – the funk and hip-hop he heard growing up – as a bridge between jazz and other genres.

At the band’s heart, of course, is the leader, born (in 1973) and raised in Evanston, Illinois, the first suburb north of Chicago and the culturally precocious home of Northwestern University. A young veteran who has worked with a raft of top-name artists – from hip-hop icon Common to superstar vocalist Sheena Easton to local heroes like Liquid Soul and The Mighty Blue Kings – Greene began playing alto saxophone at the age of 10. He developed his skills in the award-winning Evanston High School music program; while there, he began to perform professionally with local jazz and rock groups, and continued to do so after entering the prestigious Jazz Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington. There he studied with the renowned David Baker (who received the NEA “Jazz Masters” designation in 2000).

In assembling what is now the Chris Greene Quartet, the saxophonist started with the shards of New Perspective, which had begun to wane in the early 2000s. “Damian Espinosa had been playing with us since 2001, and he was my first choice for piano. And I had known [bassist] Marc Piane since 1996, had done some gigs with him in different bands; he was my first choice for an acoustic band. I asked Marc who he enjoyed playing rhythm with, and he said he played a lot with Tyrone Blair.

The CGQ has released three physical albums: “Soul and Science” (Volume One in 2007; Volume Two in 2008) and “Merge” (2009). The band has also released one digital album, the 2010 “Play Time” (named after the 1967 film by Jacques Tati), available as a free download from their website; later that year came a DVD, “Based On A True Story”, recorded in concert at the world-famous Jazz Showcase. In the summer of 2011, drummer Blair was replaced by powerhouse drummer Steve Corley, who has continued to drive the band’s signature blend of 21st-century American musical genres. In October 2011 they recorded a live album (“A Group Effort”) at Mayne Stage in Chicago, and released a double album (“Music Appreciation”) in 2014.