Massimo Carboni is a Sardinian saxophonist who began his concert career in the second half of the 1980s, working with the leading jazz musicians and ensembles then active on the island. His conservatory faculty biography credits his early bands with three regional first-prize wins: Metro at the Festival S. Anna Arresi in 1987 (recording Presage, LMJ), the D.D. Band's third prize at Forli Jazz 1988 (recording Tangos de la Tardor, LMJ, on which Discogs individually credits Carboni on tenor saxophone), and the Scrusciuscatalasciu Quintet's first prize at Posada Jazz 1995 (recording Burrum' Ballad, Splasc(h), also Discogs-verified). He also recorded with Paolo Carrus's "Sardegna oltre il mare" project, releasing the self-titled 1992 CD (Splasc(h), Discogs-verified) and, per his own biography, a follow-up titled Odras (Splasc(h), 1998) not catalogued on Discogs.

Since 1991 Carboni has been the first tenor saxophone and soloist of the Orchestra Jazz della Sardegna (OJS), a Sassari big band founded in 1989 as the Blue Note Orchestra and renamed in 1996, one of the few Italian orchestras that has operated continuously since its founding. He remains on the orchestra's own published 2025-26 roster, now doubling on alto and soprano saxophone as well as tenor. Two of his OJS recordings are individually Discogs-verified: Sacred Concert / Jazz Te Deum (2002, Soul Note), directed and composed by Giorgio Gaslini, on which Paolo Fresu is the featured trumpet soloist and Maria Pia De Vito is one of five credited voices; and Il Brutto Anatroccolo (2005, Il Manifesto), also directed by Gaslini. The Associazione Blue Note Orchestra's (ABNO) own official discography page additionally names Carboni individually, by instrument, in the personnel of several later OJS-family recordings not catalogued on Discogs: Bruno Tommaso e i solisti della OJDS (2016), Bruno Tommaso's Jazz Requiem Mass (2022), Wide Sounds (2022, live with the Woodstore Quintet at JazzOp 2021, Teatro Verdi, Sassari, where ABNO also credits him as a co-composer), Domani e un altro giorno (2025, with the Sardinian band Bertas), La musica di Horace Silver (2025, Blue Note Brass Sextet + Drums) and Skylark (2026, Blue Note Jazz Ensemble).

Carboni is also a founding member of the Woodstore Quintet, alongside pianist Mariano Tedde, bassist Paolo Spanu, drummer Gianni Filindeu and trumpeter Raffaele Polcino, all Discogs-credited bandmates. The group won first prize at Barga Jazz in 2001 and released Distanza (2002, Splasc(h)) and 41st Parallel (2005, Nagel Heyer Records), the latter featuring American trumpeter Tim Hagans as a guest; per Carboni's own conservatory biography, 41st Parallel also featured Maria Pia De Vito and was selected among the best albums of 2006 by the British newspaper The Independent, and the quintet went on to release Playmakers (2010, Picanto Records) with Paolo Fresu, neither the De Vito credit on 41st Parallel nor Playmakers itself confirmed at the Discogs level. In 2010 Carboni co-founded the Italian-Finnish quintet InFinIta with Finnish pianist-composer Sid Hille, trumpeter Tero Saarti, and his Woodstore/OJS colleagues Paolo Spanu and Gianni Filindeu; the group recorded Time Continuum (2013, SatnaMusic) in Helsinki, mixed by Jan Erik Kongshaug, a credit confirmed by Discogs' own artist entry for Infinita rather than by individual release-level credits. His conservatory biography also lists an alto saxophone role in the "Birth of the Cool" tribute project, which released a self-titled CD on the Musica Jazz label in 2012 with Paolo Fresu (listed on Carboni's Discogs page but without individual extraartists detail), and his own quartet Four and More, formed in 2015 with pianist Alessandro Di Liberto, bassist Nicola Muresu and drummer Paolo Sechi. In 2025 Carboni was among the credited musicians on saxophonist Enzo Favata's Out Of Trane (Carrabbuffas Music), per Favata's own verified jazzprofiles.com discography.

Alongside performing, Carboni teaches jazz saxophone and ensemble music at the Conservatorio "Luigi Canepa" in Sassari, where his faculty page currently lists three levels of "Saxofono Jazz - prassi esecutive e repertori," and has taught at the Nuoro Jazz seminars since 2003.

That same conservatory biography lists decades of engagements, not independently confirmed at the Discogs-credit level, with a long roster of touring and recording jazz musicians: Tom Harrell, Carla Bley, Bob Mintzer, Billy Cobham, Steve Swallow, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Norma Winstone, Colin Towns, Andy Sheppard, Fabrizio Bosso, Furio di Castri, Richard Galliano, Perico Sambeat, Claudio Fasoli, Bruno Tommaso, Eric Vloeimans, Dave Holland, Dario Deidda, Flavio Boltro, Dado Moroni, Maurizio Giammarco, David Linx, Antonello Salis, Tom Kirkpatrick, Tino Tracanna, Franco Cerri, Stefano Cerri, Roberto Gatto, Alessandro Di Liberto, Luca Mannutza, Ettore Fioravanti, Roberto Cipelli, Steve Grossman, Giulio Capiozzo, Mario Raja, Rita Marcotulli, Marco Tamburini, Riccardo Zegna, Paolino Dalla Porta and Mario Corvini. No birth date or birthplace for Carboni is publicly documented on Discogs, Wikipedia in English or Italian, AllMusic, or All About Jazz.

Carboni's career runs on two parallel tracks: institutional big-band section work inside the Orchestra Jazz della Sardegna, one of Italy's longest continuously operating jazz orchestras, and smaller contemporary-jazz combos he helped found and record for. His two Gaslini-directed OJS recordings sit in the large-ensemble, sacred-jazz and orchestral-jazz idiom the orchestra built its identity on since 1989. His own Woodstore Quintet and InFinIta records move toward internationally minded contemporary small-group jazz, recorded for a German label with an American guest trumpeter on 41st Parallel, and in Helsinki with a Finnish rhythm partner and a Norwegian mixing engineer on Time Continuum. Teaching has run alongside both strands since at least 2003, at the Nuoro Jazz seminars and, more recently, as a jazz saxophone professor at the Conservatorio "Luigi Canepa."