Originally from Dexter, Oregon, SteepleChase recording artist Joe Manis was the recipient of a 2013 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. Recent Joe Manis Trio appearances include Fat Cat NYC, Jimmy Mak's, Tula's, the PDX Jazz Festival, the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival, and the Montavilla Jazz Festival. Manis’s live performance was recently featured on NPR’s Jazz Night in America, hosted by Christian McBride. 

 

Manis has toured Europe as a duo and in a trio with David Friesen, where they recorded the live albums Structures and Interaction. He also appears on Risky Notion (Four stars & Best Albums of 2015, DownBeat Magazine) on Origin Records with George Colligan's Theoretical Planets. He has played with Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, including a performance at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, and appears on their album Rise Up! on Real World Records. He has also performed with the George Colligan Quartet, the Chuck Israels Jazz Orchestra, the Ken Schaphorst Big Band, and studio and symphony orchestras such as the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, the Sunriver Music Festival Orchestra, the Eugene Symphony, and the Eugene Opera, among others. 

 

Manis regularly presents jazz masterclasses across the country, including at University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Texas at Arlington, and nearly every institution of higher education in the state of Oregon. He received a Master of Music in Jazz Studies-Performance with Academic Honor from the New England Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from the University of Oregon. Additional studies were at the Eastman School of Music. He is a current faculty member at the University of Oregon, Portland State University, Lane Community College and a former music faculty member at Umpqua Community College. His written work has been published in JAZZed Magazine.