Mauro Negri was born in Mantua in 1966 and trained classically on clarinet under Giovanni Bertolini, studying jazz alongside his conservatory work. At eighteen, in 1984, he placed second in a competition for first saxophone chair run by RAI in Milan and went on to work with the RAI orchestra in the years that followed. The next year he was named best overall musician at the national "Viva i Giovani" contest, and he later won Best New National Talent in the Top Jazz poll run by the magazine Musica Jazz, along with the Jazz Contest organized by Musica Oggi.

He made his recorded debut as a leader with Patarau (1989, Splasc(h) Records), featuring Franco D'Andrea as special guest, and has led a steady stream of small-group and duo records since: Poirot (1992), Piku (1994), So Funky (1997, with Enrico Rava as special guest), two duo albums with the Slovenian free-improvisation drummer Zlatko Kaučič, Glasba Za Romana (1998) and Squarci (2000, tagged Free Jazz and Free Improvisation on Discogs), and Line Up (2005), a quartet date with bassist Furio Di Castri, pianist Paolo Birro and drummer Fabrizio Sferra whose cover portrait, shot by photographer Luciano Rossetti, illustrates this profile.

From 1998 to 2001 Negri was a fixed member of French drummer Aldo Romano's quartet, touring Paris, Monaco, Hong Kong, Porto, Guadeloupe and Amiens and recording Corners (1999, Label Bleu) alongside bassist Michel Benita and guitarist Tim Miller. He returned as a guest on three further Romano leader dates over the next two decades: Etat de Fait (2007), Just Jazz (2008, with Henri Texier and Geraldine Laurent) and Reborn (2020, which also features Enrico Rava on trumpet). Separately, he spent three years as first alto saxophone and clarinet in the Vienna Art Orchestra, the Austrian big band led by Mathias Rüegg, recording Swing & Affairs (2005) and 3 (2007) with the ensemble and touring internationally.

Negri's other Discogs-verified sessions include three dates with Enrico Rava (Certi Angoli Segreti, 1998, on which he shares track 3 with pianist Stefano Bollani; [Vento], 2000, again alongside Bollani and singer Barbara Casini; and Jazzitaliano Live 2006), Claudio Fasoli's career retrospective Résumé (2000), Enrico Intra's Luciano Berio tribute Le Case Di Berio (2005), Furio Di Castri's own Wooden You (1999) and Zapping (2008), and Antonio Faraò's Boundaries (2015), on which Negri plays tenor and soprano saxophone; Faraò returned the favor as special guest pianist on Negri's own Buds (2015, TRJ Records). He was also a sideman on the Dream Band septet's A Jazz Story Suite (2002), alongside trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso and pianist Dado Moroni, and formed the guitar-led S.F. Group with guitarist Bebo Ferra, recording So Funky (1997) and, later, the co-billed SF 4 (2010).

His own leader catalog also runs through Colours (2003, with pianist Nico Morelli), L'Attente Des Femmes (2003, a duo with Breton harpist Kristen Noguès), Touch & Go (2006), Dune (2013, with the F.M. 4tet) and, more recently, Jazz 4Amy (2021) and All Right Session (2025, Mauro Negri Quartet). He leads or has led a run of named groups beyond his own quartet, including the Mauro Negri Double Quartet, Keptorchestra (which recorded with the free-jazz soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1994), the Bartolomeo Barenghi 7tet, the Riccardo Fioravanti Quartet and the GPN Trio, and has been a member of the Claudio Fasoli Nonet and the Lydian Sound Orchestra. He has taught at the Conservatorio di Mantova since 2006.

His own biography and press coverage also name Richard Galliano, Kenny Wheeler, Billy Cobham, Albert Mangelsdorff, Lee Konitz, Gato Barbieri and Tony Scott among his collaborators; those connections are not independently confirmed at the Discogs credit level in this profile's own research and are noted here for completeness rather than asserted as verified.

Negri's discography splits between mainstream small-group jazz and more exploratory territory. The two duo records with Zlatko Kaučič, and the earlier group date with Steve Lacy, sit at the free-improvisation end of his output; Discogs itself tags Squarci Free Jazz and Free Improvisation. The bulk of his leader and sideman work, by contrast, sits in a straighter post-bop and mainstream idiom, built around the clarinet and the full family of saxophones. His three-year stint as lead alto and clarinet in the Vienna Art Orchestra put him inside one of European jazz's most durable large ensembles, and that big-band thread continues through his membership in the Lydian Sound Orchestra and the Reunion Big Band.