Stefano Cantini, known throughout his career by the nickname "Cocco," was born on April 23, 1956, in Follonica, on the Tuscan coast. His own Discogs profile text describes him simply as an "Italian jazz saxophonist," and his performing career runs from 1975 to the present, built mainly on soprano saxophone, with tenor saxophone and occasional piano also in his credits.

His most prominent jazz association came in 1994 and 1995, when he toured and recorded with pianist Michel Petrucciani. Other collaborators across his career include Chet Baker, Dave Holland, Enrico Rava, Billy Cobham, Kenny Wheeler and Dave Liebman. A Discogs-confirmed credit from 1989 places him, on soprano saxophone, alongside Rava's trumpet on Toucan, billed to Giochi Proibiti Con Enrico Rava, a group Cantini belonged to; the same session brought in keyboardist Massimo Colombo and guitarist Riccardo Bianchi, and was produced by bassist Furio Di Castri. Two years later, Cantini played soprano saxophone on Di Castri's own What Colour For A Tale (1991, Splasc(H) Records), alongside pianist Ramberto Ciammarughi.

As a leader, Cantini's catalog is anchored by two tribute projects to musicians he admired. Niccolina Al Mare (2001, Materiali Sonori) is dedicated to Michel Petrucciani, recorded with drummer Manhu Roche, guitarist Nelson Veras and double bassist Paolino Dalla Porta, its Brazilian-tinged material ("Brazilian Like," "Brazilian Suite") reflecting Veras's own background. A decade later he turned to John Coltrane across two further albums, Living Coltrane - No Project, No Tribute Just The Music Of Coltrane (2011) and Living Coltrane - Out Of This World (2012, both Incipit/EGEA Music), recorded with pianist Francesco Maccianti, double bassist Ares Tavolazzi and drummer Piero Borri.

In between, L'Amico Del Vento (2005, EGEA), a duo album with pianist Rita Marcotulli set against the Arkè String Project chamber ensemble, was reviewed on All About Jazz by critic John Kelman, one of the clearer pieces of independent jazz-press evidence for his standing outside Italy. Errante (2010, EGEA) paired him with trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso (credited on Discogs for this session on trombone, though Bosso is primarily known as a trumpeter), Ciammarughi on piano, French bassist Michel Benita and Roche on drums. Progetto Italiano (2007, Philology) billed Cantini alongside drummer Gianni Cazzola and the Luca Necciari-Matteo Addabbo Quartet.

Cantini has also built a long career as a session saxophonist outside jazz, touring with Ray Charles and Phil Collins and recording for a long list of Italian pop and singer-songwriter acts, including Laura Pausini, Fiorella Mannoia, Raf, Irene Grandi, Paolo Vallesi and the Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz. He was the saxophone soloist on the soundtrack of Francesco Nuti's film Stregati (1986), which won a Nastro d'Argento for its score, and he co-authored a book on Etruscan music, La Musica Perduta Degli Etruschi (2013). Within the jazz world, he has also worked extensively as a sideman for singer Barbara Casini, appearing on her debut Todo O Amor (1997, Philology, the same session on which Stefano Bollani plays piano) and on her Gilberto Gil tribute Barato Total (2011); for accordionist Riccardo Tesi; for vocalist Ada Montellanico; and for the Maurizio Rolli Big Band. In 2017 he was the soprano saxophonist on pianist Alessandro Galati's Kenny Wheeler tribute Wheeler Variations, alongside Tavolazzi and vocalist Simona Severini.

His most recent leader release, Falling Up (2022, Abeat Records, with the Francesco Maccianti Quartet), grew out of a pandemic-era duo with Maccianti that expanded into a quartet with bassist Gabriele Evangelista and drummer Bernardo Guerra. Since 2024 Cantini has also worked in electronic dance music, pairing with Italo-disco pioneer Alexander Robotnick, a musician he had known since the 1980s Florence scene, on the EP Robocok (2024) and the album Marina Vibes (2025, both Hot Elephant Music), described by the label as modal, improvised techno-jazz. He is the artistic director of the Grey Cat Jazz Festival in Follonica, and in 2020 was profiled in the press as "the Nastro d'Argento of the Maremma," a reference to the 1986 film-score award.

Cantini's core identity is as a lyrical soprano and tenor saxophonist working inside mainstream and chamber-adjacent Italian jazz: the two Coltrane tribute albums and the Petrucciani-dedicated debut sit alongside a chamber-jazz duo record built around a string ensemble (L'Amico Del Vento) and Brazilian-inflected material drawing on guitarist Nelson Veras's own background. His own biography states that DownBeat magazine named him among the world's leading soprano saxophone interpreters; that claim could not be independently verified beyond his own promotional materials, though his L'Amico Del Vento did receive an independent review from All About Jazz critic John Kelman.

Alongside that core jazz identity runs a much longer parallel career as an in-demand session saxophonist for Italian pop and singer-songwriter artists (Laura Pausini, Fiorella Mannoia, Raf, Irene Grandi, Paolo Vallesi) and international touring acts (Ray Charles, Phil Collins), plus film-scoring work that earned him a Nastro d'Argento in 1986. That session work runs in parallel to, rather than inside, his jazz catalog: none of his own leader albums before 2024 carry anything but a Jazz genre tag on Discogs. His most recent work complicates that picture further, a 2024-2025 duo project with electronic/nu-disco producer Alexander Robotnick that Discogs tags as Electronic and Disco rather than Jazz. Weighed together, his elite roster of jazz collaborators (Petrucciani, Chet Baker, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Liebman, Enrico Rava), his institutional role directing the Grey Cat Jazz Festival, and the Jazz-tagged majority of his own discography keep his identity primarily a jazz one, with the pop-session work and the recent electronic duo noted here as real, parallel threads rather than a competing core identity.