Edoardo De Risi survives in the historical record almost entirely through one project: directing the Orchestra Jazz Columbia, a twelve-piece studio and broadcast orchestra formed in Milan at the start of January 1931. Historian Adriano Mazzoletti, in his survey Il Jazz in Italia dalle origini alle grandi orchestre (EDT), places the orchestra directed by "il Maestro De Risi" alongside the Jazz Sinfonico Ferracioli as one of the first ensembles of real big-band scale in the young Italian jazz scene.

The orchestra worked fast. Across ten recording sessions at Columbia's Milan studio between January and June 8, 1931, it cut at least 31 sides before it had played a single public concert. Its live debut came on July 2, 1931, at the Giardini Diana in Milan, and from July 12 the orchestra's performances there were carried live over EIAR's linked Milan-Turin-Genoa radio network, with guest soloists Peter Packay and David Bee joining broadcasts billed to "il maestro De Risi."

The lineup drew on some of the strongest jazz sidemen working in Italy and nearby Europe at the time, among them Belgian alto saxophonist David Bee and Italian saxophonist and clarinetist Piero Rizza, who went on to lead an orchestra of his own. Two of the group's 1931 Columbia sides are individually catalogued today, both crediting De Risi as the orchestra's music director and conductor: "Navigando Con Te" backed with "Sei La Mia Greta Garbo," and "Lyric In Blue" backed with "Pasion." A wider slice of the orchestra's output, including "Suona Per Me" and "Crazy Banjo" (both composed under the name Daniele Dax), survives on period 78s that circulate today via specialist collectors and reissue archives. The fullest reissue to date is Riviera Jazz Records' 1999 CD Jazz in Italy in the 30s, which pairs the orchestra's Columbia sides with contemporaneous recordings by guitarist Michele "Mike" Ortuso.

No birth date, death date, birthplace, or biographical detail from before or after 1931 has surfaced in any source checked for this profile, including Discogs, English and Italian Wikipedia (no article exists under this name), and the specialist Italian jazz-history sites and blogs that document the orchestra's recordings. De Risi's place in the historical record rests on the documented existence, activity, and critical reception of this one ensemble during 1931.

The Orchestra Jazz Columbia worked in the international hot dance-band idiom that dominated European jazz-adjacent recording in 1931: a twelve-piece lineup recording and broadcasting arrangements of American and European popular songs of the day, built for a large dance orchestra rather than a small improvising combo. Mazzoletti's history frames the group, alongside the Jazz Sinfonico Ferracioli, as one of the first Italian ensembles to work at true big-band scale, recording at a pace (ten sessions, at least 31 sides, in under six months) that outstripped its own live debut. Its reliance on strong imported and Italian soloists such as David Bee and Piero Rizza situates it inside the same early-1930s current that fed directly into the more famous Italian dance-orchestra leaders of the following decade.