Emiliano "Emi" Vernizzi is a saxophonist and composer based in Parma, in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, where he teaches jazz saxophone at the Conservatorio "Arrigo Boito" and at the conservatory in Cesena. His own biography counts more than 50 recordings across jazz, pop, rock, electronics and American roots music, and describes him as a "versatile and reliable sideman" who also leads and co-leads several original projects. His birth date and birthplace are not published in any source he or the conservatory maintains.

He began performing in the early 1990s with rhythm and blues, rock and funk bands, and moved into jazz through study in Milan (the Civici Corsi di Jazz, with teachers including Franco Cerri, Giulio Visibelli and Gianni Bedori), Bologna and Rome. His teachers in Italy also included Renato D'Aiello, Maurizio Giammarco and Riccardo Luppi. He earned both his three-year degree and his master's in jazz at the Parma conservatory, each with the top mark of 110 cum laude, and took workshops in New York with Dave Liebman, Walt Weiskopf, Joel Fraham, Marc Mommaas, Melissa Aldana, Barry Harris and Steve Coleman, plus clinics with Giorgio Gaslini, Gianluigi Trovesi and others. Those teaching and workshop relationships come from his biography, not from recorded credits. In 2000 he won an award at the National Youth Contest in Verbania.

His early professional years ran through Italy's big-band circuit. His biography says that in 1999 he met pianist Rossano Sportiello and joined the Sidela Stompers, and that he played weekly at Bologna's Chet Baker club in the Reunion Big Band with Marco Tamburini and Piero Odorici. He has since held first-tenor chairs in the Jazz Art Orchestra directed by Carlo Gelmini, the Civica Jazz Band under Enrico Intra, the Jazz'on Parma Orchestra led by Javier Girotto, and the Union Jazz Band. The Jazz Art Orchestra's 2007 album Drums and JAO documents that chapter: Discogs credits Vernizzi on tenor saxophone in a horn section that includes trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso and a drum roster that includes Massimo Manzi.

The project that has defined his catalog is Pericopes, a saxophone and piano duo he formed in 2007 with pianist Alessandro Sgobbio. The duo's first documented releases are the two-volume The Double Side (2012, RAM Records), followed by Frames (2014), a recorded concert evening at the Teatro Gualtieri, issued on the Parmafrontiere label. Around 2012 the duo became Pericopes+1 with New York drummer Nick Wight, and the trio released These Human Beings (2015, Alfa Music), whose liner notes were written by Dave Liebman and Enrico Rava and which was mixed and mastered by Liberty Ellman. Pericopes won first prize at the Umbria Jazz Contest and at the Padova Carrarese competition (the latter with a jury presided over by Paolo Fresu), and Musica Jazz's 2012 TopJazz poll mentioned the project. Legacy (2017, AUAND), What What (2018, Unit Records, back in duo format) and Up (2020, Losen Records, with a string quartet on several tracks) followed; All About Jazz reviewed the group repeatedly, and Karl Ackermann called These Human Beings an impressive outing.

In 2024 the group returned with a new lineup. Good Morning World! (Losen Records), a concept album about life in the age of algorithms, replaced Sgobbio and Wight with pianist and electronics player Claudio Vignali and drummer Ruben Bellavia, adds double bassist Rosa Brunello and violinist Anais Drago as guests, and puts Vernizzi's own electronics alongside his tenor saxophone. Fred Grand's Jazz Journal review praised the album's proggy electro-jazz aesthetic and its balance of acoustic and electric sounds.

Vernizzi's second main band is Blue Moka, a quartet with guitarist Michele Bianchi, Hammond organist Alberto Gurrisi and drummer Michele Morari. Its debut, Blue Moka feat. Fabrizio Bosso (2018, Via Veneto Jazz), has Bosso guesting on trumpet and sharing the producer credit; a second album, Enjoy, followed in 2023 (RNC Music). He also appears on two albums by trombonist Beppe Di Benedetto's quintet on TRJ Records (2013 and 2015), on guitarist Valentino Tamponi's Turchese (2011), and on vocalist Letizia Brugnoli's Crystal Flower (2023, Irma Records).

Outside jazz, his biography lists work with Luciano Ligabue (including the Campovolo concert, the Made in Italy album and the 2017 arena tour), Negramaro, Cesare Cremonini, Mario Biondi, Riccardo Fogli and Francesco Baccini, and Discogs confirms his tenor saxophone credit on Ligabue's Made in Italy (2016, Warner Music Italy). He has been a member of the New York-based band of guitarist and singer Izzy Zaidman since 2011, and played on the progressive-rock revival project Altare Thotemico's Sogno Errando (2013). Festival and club dates listed in his biography range from Umbria Jazz, Stresa Jazz and Torino Jazz Festival to Midpoint Music Fest in Cincinnati, the JIM Festival in Beijing, Gateshead Jazz Festival and clubs including Smalls in New York, Sunset Sunside in Paris and the Blue Note in Milan. He has given masterclasses at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and the University of Aberdeen.

Vernizzi's own summary of his range runs from post-bop, European jazz and the avant-garde to funk, hip-hop, American roots, rock and pop. His Pericopes work is the clearest statement of that mix: the duo describes its sound as "New Jazz," rooted in the European tradition, African-American music and improvisation, with a taste for melody and compositional structure, and the later records add post-rock, prog and electronic elements. Discogs tags These Human Beings (2015) as avant-garde jazz and Legacy (2017) as contemporary jazz; on What What (2018), back in saxophone-and-piano format, Mark Corroto's All About Jazz review drew comparisons to Jan Garbarek and to duos such as Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran; and Up (2020) and Good Morning World! (2024) bring in strings, Fender Rhodes and live electronics. Blue Moka is his organ-quartet vehicle, built around Hammond organ and guitar.

His saxophone identity is primarily tenor and soprano, with alto in the mix, and on the more recent Pericopes+1 albums he plays electronics as well. His formal grounding is the Parma jazz degree and the New York workshops with Dave Liebman, Walt Weiskopf and Steve Coleman named above, on top of the Milan and Bologna big-band and rhythm-and-blues circuits where he began. His pop and rock session work, chiefly with Ligabue, sits alongside his jazz career rather than replacing it: his teaching post, his jazz degrees, his contest prizes and the great majority of his Discogs credits are jazz.