Patrick Cornelius, New York-based Jazz Saxophonist

Over the past several years, alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius has emerged as an exciting and dynamic new voice in the New York jazz scene. An instrumental virtuoso who counts Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Wayne Shorter, Claude Debussy, and Peter Gabriel among his greatest influences, Patrick has made a name for himself as an emerging artist with seemingly limitless potential.

The son of a highly decorated US Air Force officer, Patrick was raised in such diverse locales as Germany, Georgia, Texas, and Great Britain. His parents took great pains to nurture his deep love and appreciation for the fine arts from an early age, exposing him and his brothers to the theater, concerts, museums, poetry readings, and classic literature. Patrick began studying the piano at the age of 5, and gravitated towards the alto saxophone as a teenager, shifting his musical focus from the works of Debussy, Grieg, and Bartok, to the sounds of Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane. He cut his teeth playing local gigs around his native San Antonio while still in high school, before attending both Berklee College of Music and The Manhattan School of Music on full scholarships for undergraduate and graduate studies respectively. More recently, Cornelius garnered back-to-back Young Jazz Composer awards from ASCAP in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and completed an Artist Diploma from the world famous Juilliard School.

Patrick’s latest album Maybe Steps, which releases this September on Posi-Tone, takes its title from a tune Patrick first recorded for his last album Fierce (2010‘s trio outing), and combines old and new works into a deeply introspective tone poem, by far his most ambitious. The quintet format from Cornelius’ first album Lucid Dream is back, as is drummer Kendrick Scott, joined by bassist Peter Slavov, another former Berklee classmate, pianist Gerald Clayton, and guitarist, composer and iconoclast Miles Okazaki, whom Cornelius met during post-graduate studies at Juilliard, and describes as "an incredibly intellectual and compositional improviser, yet really swinging and earthy at the same time.” Nine of Maybe Steps' eleven tunes are originals (Kurt Weil/George Gerschwin and George Shearing penned the remaining two) and many are programmatic, representing life events from the birth of Cornelius' daughter to the day he proposed marriage to his wife. Maybe Steps’ willingness to show vulnerability is its greatest strength. While Cornelius’ last recording Fierce was about the alto, Maybe Steps is about the altoist.

But the defining theme of Cornelius' career is not how he felt facing the various "big decisions" in his life, but that he did face them. His albums showcase the pursuit of an individual voice by any means necessary and a keen understanding of what makes him unique.

Cornelius, whose bands have in recent years been featured at venues such as Ronnie Scott's, London Jazz Festival, and Pizza Express in London, and The Blue Note, The Rubin Museum, The Jazz Gallery, Smalls, and The Bar Next Door in New York, continues to be one of New York's most respected up-and-coming young jazz musicians. Maybe Steps releases this September on Posi-Tone Records.

“[his] original works show a dusky elegance that owes much to Wayne Shorter while retaining a unique identity.”
-- JazzTimes

“a bold and gifted sax player”
--All About Jazz

“a dynamic New York altoist”
--The Guardian

"a self-assured young saxophonist in the postmodern mainstream”
--The New York Times

Patrick is currently available for concerts, private functions, clinics, individual or group instruction. Please contact info@patrickcornelius.com for more information.

Selected Discography:

Patrick Cornelius /Nick Vayenas: Quintet 2001
Patrick Cornelius: Lucid Dream 2006
The TransAtlantic Collective: Traveling Song 2008
Patrick Cornelius Trio: Fierce 2010
Patrick Cornelius: Maybe Steps 2011