What Claude Nobbs did for the Montreaux Jazz Festival has certainly been matched by the efforts and hard work of Pagnotta in Umbria. This year Pagnotta will be 90 and shows no signs of slowing down. He purchased his first jazz record in 1949 and in 1955 Pagnotta co-founded the Hot Club of Perugia bringing Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker to the club. 

He then moved to London and immersed himself in the London Jazz scene. In these years Pagnotta said ‘I was only a jazz fan’ seeing Tubby Hayes, the Jazz Couriers and of course Ronnie Scott - Pagnotta proudly told me that in October 1959 he was at Ronnie Scott’s opening night in Gerrard Street, Soho.