Today is the day! Jazz:Re:Found is ready to kick off its five days music bonanza in the scenic setting of Cella Monte, in Northwest Italy. What better time to reveal the final episode of our festival series, where we introduce you to the visionary mastermind behind this incredible journey that began back in 2008?

In this sixth and final episode, we cast the spotlight on Denis Longhi, the driving force who ignited the festival in Vercelli 16 years ago and continues to steer the creative and operational wheel of the JZ:RF dream. A dream shaped by his eclectic and expansive musical taste, along with countless hours of dedication to the music scene, both on the ground and across venues, towns, and cities like Cella Monte, Vercelli, Turin, Milan, London, Berlin, and any place where high-quality, jazzy sounds resonate.

To dive deeper into the Jazz:Re:Found experience, be sure to check out our in-depth Q&A with Denis and we look forward to seeing you in a few hours in Cella Monte!

Can you describe the moment or experience when you first felt a deep connection with music and realised it would become a significant part of your life?

I can identify four pivotal moments. One dates back to when my parents would host small parties at home. My father had several instruments: a guitar, a keyboard, and some percussion. Though not a great musician, he loved music and was a cheerful, generous person who often invited friends over, enlivening the gatherings by playing Italian music, and occasionally tracks by Phil Collins, Dire Straits, and Lionel Richie on floppy disks. That was the first time I began to see music not only as something to listen to but also as an opportunity for sharing and empathy.

A particularly enlightening moment was when I went to Master Dischi in Vercelli with my first savings and pocket money from my grandmother. There, Edoardo, a great enthusiast of progressive and “high” music—not just classical—saw me buying mediocre dance music compilations and handed me a CD by Charlie Parker. This was around 1991-1992, and I was about 13 or 14 years old. Intrigued by this challenge, I discovered a musically complex world that was difficult to appreciate as a pre-teen, but it gave me a significant boost. My father noticed my growing passion and started buying me jazz compilations at newsstands. However, the rest of jazz didn’t captivate me as much, as I lacked the tools to fully understand it.

In 1993, my parents left me home alone for one of the first times. They had bought an album thinking it was jazz, but it was actually Guru‘s Jazzmatazz Vol. 1, which had just been released. I experienced a kind of shock—a contact with a musical world I didn’t know, which combined jazz, dance music, and hip-hop. I was fortunate, at 15, to take a very evolved trajectory compared to my peers due to this “accident,” as my parents thought they had given me a jazz record.

The definitive episode was my first trip to London in the late ’90s, where I discovered the world of Worldwide with Gilles Peterson at Barrumba, Cargo with its nights of live black music, and especially the Co-Op Night at Plastic People, which had completely changed the fate of club culture at the time and drew me away from the ordinary Italian canons of house music and the Romagna-Balearic context, which, as beautiful as it was, had already tired me.

How would you describe your musical tastes, and how do they influence your work when you take on the role of artistic director?

My musical tastes are non-trivial but not too eccentric—quite sophisticated. I realise that, over the years, I have come to recognise the classic criticism young people have towards the older generation: lacking brilliance, desire, and the ability to experiment. I see this in myself, not because I’ve ended up in a comfort zone, but because I’ve defined a certain type of language and musical taste so well that I feel very comfortable with certain sounds and not others. Certain hyper-contemporary sounds sometimes escape me, and, not having much of the club culture context as a link with new sounds—not because I no longer go dancing or to festivals, but because clubs practically no longer exist and festivals with certain types of music are very few in Italy—I think I have a well-defined musical taste but with a definite limit in terms of enjoyment.

I am totally in love with modal sounds and the harmonic narrative of soul, but I also have a visceral love for South American music, especially Brazilian jazz, which has been a guiding line for me over these years. One of the first people who told me that this would be “the way,” even when I hadn’t yet figured it out, was Mark de Clive-Lowe, who, at the time, when he was creating avant-garde and experimental broken beat, only listened to Brazilian jazz. I very much identify with this vision. My work is totally conditioned by these tastes, and the only wise thing I’ve done in recent years to improve this paradigm is to delegate some choices to younger collaborators. If I have to rely on my choices, they will always be much more emotional than functional. However, I believe that, having had great consistency over these years, it’s the world that has changed and come much closer to our language—not that our language has become better, but I believe that awareness has made it much simpler today to disseminate and distribute this type of music because significant steps have been made at a general level in growing audiences.

Having your finger on the pulse of the Italian jazz scene and independent music in general, what direction have they taken, and how do you see the next decade?

Like everyone, I was surprised by the generation that has exploded in the last two years in the Italian post-jazz scene. Up to the pre-COVID period, we all had this vision of the USA scene between Los Angeles and New York and the UK scene, both of which had fermentation and global evolution, but somehow seemed unattainable. This was due to their nature of cultural and ethnic contaminations that are not present in Italy—from the African diaspora to the evolutions of club culture in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—ensuring that where there are African American, Caribbean, and Latin components, this contemporary hybridisation of jazz towards different worlds and sounds, which also appeals to younger generations, has thrived.

Perhaps thanks to the work done by JZ and to global communication of these musics, there have been significant accelerations in Italy. Today, at the European level, the Italian scene—though not so recognisable in terms of sound matrix and musical style—is making a very evident impact, similar to what is happening in Belgium with more rave/electronic sounds, while in Italy, there is a legacy more linked to library music and Mediterranean influences. There is a live, real scene that is taking shape. With artists like Daykoda, Ze in the Clouds, who we’ve also followed directly, Nu Genea—somewhat the forerunners of that scene—Veezo, Kidd Mojo and their Malasartoria project, Mago del Gelato, and Calibro 35, I’d say we are doing very well. What’s missing is an editorial project that synthesises this entire scene in communication, like Worldwide FM or Tiny Desk or Boiler Room did for club culture, to define the actors of the scene and its physiognomy in a more pop and contemporary way.

What inspired you to start Jazz:Re:Found, and what were the initial challenges you had to face?

Event organisation started relatively early. At 16/17 years old, we were already hosting house parties at CRAL (Workers’ Club)—a bit adolescent, but with a certain different vision from the many nightclubs that surrounded us. The first project that anticipated Noego and Funkinetic was called Trend our Groove and consisted of me as the DJ and Andrea Varini as the vocalist. We were clearly children of that generation. From 1995 to 2000, we carried forward a very normal aesthetic, made of trendy clothing, house music, and a bit of electronics. Then, around 1999/2000, we founded a crew called Funkinetic, a band that took inspiration from St. Germain and the first French experiments between house and jazz. Later, Noego was born, a crew that evolved all this towards more contemporary forms like broken beat and trip-hop, with a strong visual component. In 6-7 years, it reached quite a level of completion, exporting that product to Turin, Milan, and London. It had become a crew that, from the early 2000s, imposed itself in the Italian underground as an important player.

It was then natural to develop this type of proposal and attitude upwards. We started hosting some of the seminal artists of the London broken beat scene, like Mark de Clive-Lowe, Bugs in the Attic, Richard Spaven, and Vanessa Freeman, and we managed to create a small Vercelli scene in which that very underground London context found a nice basin. All this became an inspiration to continue along that line. One of the most accredited live events at that time was the Jazz:Re:Freshed night at Mau Mau in Portobello, which Andrea and I attended for about 10 years. It was the real inspiration for the Jazz:Re:Found nights where we emulated and celebrated this brand, which at that time featured Azymuth and Roy Ayers before they played at Jazz Café. The name is clearly inspired by Adam Rock‘s night, and conceiving a festival was more in line with our musical aesthetics: an experience that envelops you, a daytime and community experience, beyond a one-night event, that managed to guarantee all the facets that come from a festival.

How has your vision for Jazz:Re:Found evolved since its inception, and what are your main aspirations for the festival today?

My vision has changed a lot both in terms of artistic direction and as a human being. Initially, my focus was very Afrocentric, centered on black culture and black music. However, several episodes made me move away from this focus, which was perhaps even extreme. At the beginning, it was fundamental to trace an important groove, but then, with the Black Lives Matter movement and some personal experiences, I realised that while my commitment to the black community was unwavering, it was pointed out to me that these problems need to be solved autonomously by the black community, without the support of the white community. I’ve always had doubts about this, not because of the weakness of the black community, but because of the privileges of the white community. Over time, my perspective has become more balanced.

The explosion of certain types of contaminations in Italy that I’ve already mentioned—Nu Genea, Daykoda, Venerus, etc.—but especially of a world in other places where the black community is not so prominent, has started to give me different suggestions. Right now, I finally feel a very balanced approach, capable of telling all the facets of contemporary music around the language of jazz. This is still 50-60% focused on black music—so funk, soul, hip-hop, disco, house—but on the other hand, there is a whole balance with contemporary classical music and certain types of downtempo electronics: FKJ, Hania Rani, Venerus, Nils Frahm. These are artists we’ve proposed in recent years and that change a bit the ancestral nature of Jazz:Re:Found, but perhaps offer a more contemporary and democratic vision.

Who are the key people who assist you in organising Jazz:Re:Found, and what roles do they play to ensure the success of the festival?

Naming names is always difficult because you inevitably forget someone. However, one name above all is certainly Alessandra Vigna, who has been the muse and the person who has supported me in this project for a long time. A “hidden” figure who has never emerged but has a very high percentage of effectiveness is Andrea Varini, my childhood friend who, together with me, created the Noego project and has accompanied me throughout the journey that generated Jazz:Re:Found. Professionally, he then took another path, but he has always remained at our side. Now, there is a team composed of Angela Giorgi for communication, Federica Meacci for marketing strategy, Andrea “Kudd” Cussotto on project management, Angela Cantaro and Pietro Zambrin on production, Alessandra Salvini for the administrative part, and still Diego Indovino, Mario Corte, and Tomà Benfatti. The people behind this project are many, and the list could go on. The team is now well-balanced, with at least 10 figures who work daily. One of the key advisors remains Raffaele Costantino for choices and communication strategies, while Alessandro Settepani was one of the key people in giving a boost of confidence in 2019, consistently supporting the whole project with his label Jazz-O-Tech. Personally, I consider myself privileged, because not only have I turned my passion into work, but I have also turned my vision into work—a passage that is even more complicated and not always easy to reconcile with the market.

What criteria do you use when selecting the artists and styles to present at Jazz:Re:Found? How do you strive to maintain an eclectic line-up, and what suggestions would you give to musicians who would like to perform at the festival?

A fundamental part of the artist selection process is research, done essentially in two ways: attending festivals or showcases—such as Le Guess Who, We Out Here, and 50 Lab—which somehow represent the “more Jazz:Re:Found” versions of Eurosonic. These are fairly specific contexts where you go to discover new artists blindly or to seek confirmation on others that were already on the radar. The most important part, which has greatly facilitated my work, is represented by editorial supports—especially radio—that in recent years have started to invest a lot in our scene, particularly Worldwide FM, which, even though it is now in a phase of reorganisation, remains crucial, along with NTS, Kiosk, and other editorial contexts where there are columns and specific projects curated by experts. Each of these manages to feed microscenes, giving us suggestions and support on which to investigate and find new ideas.

There is certainly an aspect of “celebration,” for which we always aim to intercept the big names of the past on tour: Roy Ayers, Marcos Valle, Mulatu Astatke—the giants of the scene who have traced the coordinates of Jazz:Re:Found and who are always on the wishlist.

As for musicians who want to perform at Jazz:Re:Found, the only advice I can give is not to rely on the classic stalking approach—this is neither appreciated nor very effective—because artistic directors take pride in their choices. Often, it is much easier to choose an artist if they come recommended by an external source rather than through a direct approach. This is true for me as it is for many colleagues. The ideal approach would be to emerge at the media level and attract attention. It is a difficult process, one that didn’t exist in Italy in our scene until a few years ago, but just think of Nu Genea, who represent the perfect case study on how to succeed without knocking on doors, but with a powerful project and a well-defined image. The suggestion is to be original, not derivative, and to work a lot on the uniqueness not only of your sound aesthetics but also on the concept you present. It’s better to come out suddenly with something that surprises everyone within the scene, capable of attracting offers from promoters. By now, there is an abundance of talent: Nu Genea, Venerus, Mace—the more pop ones—Daykoda, Ze in the Clouds, Veezo, Kidd Mojo, Il Mago del Gelato, Maria Chiara Argirò, LNDFK. There are now dozens of artists who are internationally recognised and who have cultivated their projects in an intelligent and original way.

Over the years, which performance you witnessed during Jazz:Re:Found struck you the most and why?

It’s difficult to summarise. Regarding the Vercelli period, Kid Koala’s performance stands out—it was his last performance in Italy, in 2011. Among the “underdogs,” I would mention Submotion Orchestra and Portico Quartet, who captivated the audience of JZ:RF, changing the perception of the festival in terms of scouting. Certainly, the last concert of 2012 by De La Soul, featuring the late Trugoy, is unforgettable.

In the Turin cycle, the first and last concerts are the ones I remember most fondly: Roy Ayers in 2015—one of the last concerts where he was in great shape—and Nu Genea in 2018, when they were not yet so well known to the public. At Cella Monte, the best surprises always came from the lesser-known artists. The concert I remember most empathetically is Hania Rani’s, which amazed the whole audience. One of my favourites was The Jab. Another standout was Echt!, a discovery of JZ:RF that positioned the project at a South-European level. One of the most beautiful memories was the concert of Azymuth, one of the last with Ivan Conti, who left us a few months later. On the main stage, there were many pearls, obviously more well-known. Perhaps the most striking were the first 20 minutes of Moodymann in 2022, which transformed the role of the DJ on the main stage almost into the performance of a band.

Jazz:Re:Found has a deep connection with its location. What influenced the decision to host the festival in Cella Monte, and how does the UNESCO heritage site affect the festival experience?

Outside the experience in Turin, which was certainly designed and tailored in a more ordinary context—though the choice of locations and their setup was always original and close to the aesthetics of Jazz:Re:Found—we managed to resume the initial mood of Vercelli with Cella Monte. Though Vercelli is a provincial city, it was set on a post-industrial and urban park narrative. With Cella Monte, we returned to work on the paradox created by the landscape, choosing a place that already had an excellent base from a landscape point of view but also potential in terms of development on setups and creation of important contrasts with the place itself.

In some ways, it was more us who gave relevance to the UNESCO site than the other way around. Before JZ:RF entered Cella Monte, it was a place little known to tourism and only marginally recognised as a site. Since 2019—the fifth year of recognition, when still few knew Cella Monte outside the regional context—we started working on this theme, particularly on the infernot: the graphics were based on enhancing the landscape, including its “underground” dimension, i.e., the cellars dug into the cantone stone. Above all, we designed a path that contrasted with the territory while also aiming to enhance it. No radical choices were made; rather, we maintained consistency with the roads, paths, and natural slope of the village, while emphasising its architectural value. So, while the UNESCO site served Jazz:Re:Found, it is more accurate to say that JZ:RF served the UNESCO site by placing it on a national and international map.

Welcoming thousands of spectators to such a unique place as Cella Monte is undoubtedly a great achievement but also presents significant challenges. How do you manage environmental and sustainability issues during the festival?

With a fair sensitivity and knowledge of protocols, it’s not too complicated to limit the environmental impact. This is a theme for us that’s fairly well-established in terms of awareness and planning, so it’s relatively easy for us to be 100% compliant. The most challenging aspect, in a positive sense, is managing to be economically performant while still being sustainable from an impact point of view. Today, we could easily host 4,000 paying customers on a Saturday, but other choices have been made—choices that may limit us economically but protect us in terms of environmental impact. The festival could accommodate higher numbers, but the very essence of the experience is qualitative, putting the customer at the centre. This is the common thread that guides all our planning and makes the festival more interesting, tailored to a dimension of community and family services, not a mass-market festival but a personalised story that respects space and service times. More than on sustainability, we focus on limiting the impact.

How does the extraordinary landscape, culinary delights, rich artistic heritage, and social dynamics of Monferrato influence the aesthetic and organisational aspects of the festival? Can you briefly introduce the area and talk about the impact of the festival on it and how it integrates?

The stratification and the imagery of the territory have greatly influenced our planning. This is evident in the setups, design, and choice of colours—all done in a conservative way or, alternatively, in stark contrast to the materials present, like the cantone stone. Paradoxically, as I have already explained, it is more the territory that benefits from JZ:RF rather than the other way around. The audience perceives our choice as a study of storytelling and location scouting, but in reality, when we arrived in Cella Monte, there was very little of what has since developed thanks to and with us.

So certainly, even from the point of view of the gastronomic offering, it was a world of agnolotti and raw meat. JZ:RF has also become a stimulus to experiment with other types of proposals and offerings. The world of wine and oenology has benefited too. From the point of view of marketing and strategic choices, which were previously aimed at local targets with fairly generalist communication, JZ:RF has been an accelerator, pushing for a much higher and more international level of communication.

How do you evaluate and incorporate audience feedback into the planning and evolution of the festival? How do you ensure that the festival remains engaging and fresh for participants who return each year?

Both from a commercial point of view and from a community point of view, the audience is “the object” of our reflections: how to be stimulating, how not to age, how not to privilege only a certain type of community over others. The litmus test of the festival’s planning is especially a certain type of stakeholder within the audience: certainly a B2B community of insiders—who provide authoritative feedback—along with the broader audience of JZ:RF, which is composed of different groups that we have learned to analyse, along with collaborators, partners, colleagues, and of course, part of the team. Feedback from communities we know well—Turin, Milan, Genoa—and from the extended communities, plays a crucial role. Analysing the audience’s perception, first from an experiential point of view and then from the appreciation and surprise of the musical offer, is one of the factors that influences the programming and line-up as well as the overall experience design.

Outside the festival season, what projects or activities occupy your time? How do these initiatives reflect in your work with Jazz:Re:Found?

I am fortunate to have turned not only my passion into work but also my vision into work. All the projects I organise and manage are part of a much more articulated and complex reasoning that refers to Jazz:Re:Found Garden. We imagined this courtyard, garden, and container of ideas and projects that hosts three festivals—JZ:RF, Transatlantica, Archipelago—a season of events, artistic residencies, and above all now a hub—Ottimo in Vercelli—that hosts a listening bar, the headquarters of the non-profit association Ale per Sempre, the office of the cultural association Casanoego, some receptive and laboratory spaces. Everything is connecting, giving shape to a very complex activity with many parallel and collateral assets that still contribute to strengthening and diversifying the original identity of JZ:RF.

In Transatlantica, we find the most seaside and hedonistic development; in Archipelago, the world of research; JZ:RF tries to remain consistent with its native principles of black music and experimentation around jazz; Ottimo tries to bring together the community of the festival in a more refined and vertical place where we can also share our vision of food, wine, and the cocktail world, but especially delve into music with an important hi-fi system, including a ’70s audio chain with Japanese amplifiers and the Klipsch speakers that Dave Mancuso used at the Loft. Everything is taking on a dimension that fits together, which, in an overall design, conveys that kind of meaning. I almost always spend my free time researching new solutions from a musical and gastronomic point of view, which are my two great passions. So I am lucky that even when I want to relax, I can do research for my work.

Can you tell us about any new projects or initiatives that Jazz:Re:Found and/or the association you are part of will launch in the near future?

The most important project is definitely the one that refers to the Associazione Ale per Sempre, a recognised non-profit organisation that continues the spirit and charisma of Alessandra by materialising initiatives of great utility towards young women. We have raised several donations, collecting about 20,000€, which we will use for an annual scholarship of 6,000€ for young women under 30, ensuring access to study, professionalisation paths, or research in the musical world. The grant is substantial enough to give us confidence in the level of commitment and quality of the proposed projects.

We are also setting up a tailoring workshop for women detainees or those at the end of their detention to upcycle materials used at the festival—banners, TNT, etc.—to develop a line of fashion and merchandising signed JZ:RF, which, through its distribution, can provide income to these individuals, with our support of 4,000€ for work reintegration, covering the first two months in a company or in projects related to these themes. We are also making a proposal for a bill to modify breast cancer prevention legislation: to expand the age range and develop a combo prevention protocol—not just mammography but also ultrasound, which, through Alessandra’s experience, we understood to be fundamental. We have Federico Riboldi, former Mayor of Casale Monferrato and now Health Assessor, and Senator Enzo Amich following this project, helping us both at the ministerial and regional levels.

My goal is to internationalise the language of JZ:RF, both through artistic residencies and by exporting our Italian talents abroad with an approach that begins to be a competitor of Anglo-Saxon languages like Worldwide and Gilles, but with the Italo-Mediterranean nuances more akin to our sensitivity.

Who are your role models in the music and festival industry, and what have you learned from them?

My model and mentor par excellence is Gilles Peterson, who embodies the character of the entrepreneur in the music industry closest to my ideal: a person deeply passionate about music, who avoided being an artist precisely because the condition of the artist requires a certain type of dedication and freedom from business dynamics. As a DJ, selector, anchorman, and ambassador of a scene, Gilles has managed to give an editorial face and create a community of both artists and users, while also creating various assets: a radio station—an editorial content par excellence—a festival, and Future Bubblers for the search for new talent, along with organising a series of events throughout the year.

In terms of the festival profile, we still have much growing to do to reach his status and level, but on the other assets, we are advancing, albeit proportionately to Italy. One of Gilles’ editorial projects that I have appreciated the most over the years, although it was perhaps not economically sustainable, were the Worldwide Awards. This event managed to become almost an alternative to the Grammy Awards, providing our scene with a platform and a board of judges who could determine the best in the industry, with a significant ceremony at Koko. That is the dream of JZ:RF to be able to define an event that becomes a showcase to spotlight the most important names in our scene and elevate it.

At the Italian level, one of the people I was inspired by and trusted was Dino Lupelli, who came from Elettrowave and started the Elita project. A person who gave me many suggestions in the early 2000s was Sergio Ricciardone, who, with Club2Club, positioned the first international model of enjoyment of club culture in Piedmont. Although I knew him little, the person who suggested and inspired me the most, not so much as a business model but as a visionary and innovator who could mediate between sensitivity and action, was Giorgio Mortari, who I believe remains a great model for all of us in this generation, almost legendary, especially due to his premature passing.

How would you invite someone who has never had the pleasure of attending the festival to join you for this edition?

Over the years, I have always been used to promoting the artists, the line-up, and the musical idea of the festival, emphasising the discovery of names like Anderson .Paak and Kamasi Washington. However, I believe that today, the most interesting aspect to highlight to entice those who have never attended is that there is finally an authentic experiential model for enjoying Italian festivals. It’s not just a “big night out,” not just a review, not an intellectual vertical, nor a gathering of ravers, but objectively a unique, original, and conscious experience. It’s not just about listening to music or dancing; it’s about immersing yourself in a new and original experiential model, which is quite difficult to create in the world—thanks to the unparalleled architecture of Italian villages. Moreover, we are in a place that is not vocationally touristic—unlike places like Ortigia or Apulia, which host beautiful festivals but already have an important tourist tradition—but is rather an almost untouched place where people are gathering for this reason, and not for any other.

Jazz:Re:Found kicks off this afternoon in Cella Monte and runs through Sunday the 1st of September.
There's still time to grab your day tickets and "tiny" passes HERE