Pianist Roberto Magris was born in Trieste, Italy, on June 19, 1959. Early influences that still resonate with him include Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flanagan, Bill Evans, Kenny Drew, Jaki Byard, Randy Weston, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Paul Bley, and Steve Kuhn. He began his life as a professional jazz musician in the late '70s. In his burgeoning career, he performed as a sideman with Kai Winding, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Sal Nistico, and as a guest soloist with the Traditional Jazz Studio bands from Prague. In the '80s he led a jazz trio named Gruppo Jazz Marca, and in 1987 he founded a quartet that performed exclusively in Europe. In 1998 he formed the Europlane Orchestra, sponsored by the Central European Initiative. In 2003 he collaborated with U.S. expatriate alto saxophonist Herb Geller, recording his first major-label CD, Il Bello del Jazz, on the Italian Soul Note label with his multinational Europlane quintet featuring the tapping electric guitarist from Croatia, Darko Jurkovic. That same year he began a musical partnership with Hungarian saxophonist Tony Lakatos and Austrian saxophonist Michael Erian, recording Check-In, also for Soul Note. In 2006 Magris began a collaboration with bassist Art Davis, and in 2007 was joined by drummer Jimmy "Junebug" Jackson, recording the Soul Note album Kansas City Outbound. Magris has also worked with Franco Ambrosetti, Philip Catherine, Bill Molenhof, the acid jazz group DMA, Alfabeats, Gabriele Centis, Rudi Engel, Robert Balzar, Fulvio Zafret, Florian Bramböck, Frantisek Uhlir, Ines Reiger, Richie Buckley, Janusz Muniak, and Ricardo Cavalli. Magris has performed concerts for jazz piano, orchestra, and strings with the Big Band Ritmo Sinfonica from Verona and the Orchestra Giovanile del Veneto. ~ Michael G. Nastos