Sultan of swing builds empire from the bass

In the hit musical La La Land, the main character Sebastian Wilder is a jazz freak who is eager to revive his beloved music genre by opening a jazz club in Los Angeles.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Ren Yuqing embraces the same passion for jazz and had the same dream, eventually realizing it - and so much more. He not only owns a jazz club in Shanghai, but has gone even further than Ryan Gosling's Oscar-winning big screen persona did, founding the company JZ Music and organizing, arguably, the country's premier jazz festival, as well as being a producer, artist manager and music education provider.

"As for the difference between Sebastian and me, he is a jazz pianist while I play bass," the Beijing native says.