Chris Pasin is a New York–born jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist whose love affair with the horn began at age nine, when he started lessons under the legendary brass teacher Carmine Caruso. He went on to study with West Coast jazz great Jimmy Giuffre and renowned music theorist and bandleader George Russell, whose orchestra he performed with during a residency at the Village Vanguard. After earning a dual bachelor’s degree in classical and jazz trumpet performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, Pasin built a reputation as one of the most versatile and lyrical trumpeters of his generation.

Pasin spent two years in the early 1980s as a member of the Buddy Rich band, touring with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, and many others before relocating to New York City. He went on to work with the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin big band, organist Jack McDuff, a variety of Salsa and Brazilian groups, and the Lee Shaw Quintet, and has recorded with Gunther Schuller, George Russell, and Toshiko Akiyoshi. His flugelhorn work on the soundtrack to the film Ishtar was singled out as one of the film’s highlights, and he has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, the Royal Albert Hall, the Village Vanguard, Ronnie Scott’s, and the Blue Note, touring Europe and Asia many times.

After taking a multi-year hiatus from jazz to focus on family, Pasin returned to the scene with a string of acclaimed releases, beginning with Detour Ahead — a long-shelved 1987 session featuring Dannie Richmond, Rufus Reid, Benny Green, and Steve Slagle — followed by Random Acts of Kindness, the holiday album Baby It’s Cold Outside, and Ornettiquette, a tribute to the music of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and Don Cherry. Possessing a warm, clear tone and lyrical, adroit approach grounded in hard bop, Pasin continues to perform frequently around the New York area, compose for new projects, and appear as a sideman on numerous jazz albums, often with The North Country Horns co-led by saxophonist-arranger Jay Collins.