Montreux Jazz Festival


The Montreux Jazz Festival is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second largest annual jazz festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival.

History

The Montreux Jazz Festival opened on 18 June 1967 and was founded by Claude Nobs, Géo Voumard and René Langel with considerable help from Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic Records. The festival was first held at Montreux Casino. The driving force is the tourism office under the direction of It lasted for three days and featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The highlights of this era were Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, The Fourth Way, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Originally a pure jazz festival, it opened up in the 1970s and today presents artists of nearly every imaginable music style. Jazz remains an important part of the festival. Part of the festival's expansion was due to coproduction by Quincy Jones who brought many international artists in the early 1990s. Today's festival lasts about two weeks and attracts an audience of more than 200,000 people.
In the 1970s, the festival began broadening its scope, including blues, soul, and rock artists, for instance Marianne Faithfull, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Deep Purple, Canned Heat and many others. Towards the end of the decade, the festival expanded even more, including music from all continents and lasting a full three weeks. Santana came to Montreux for the first time in 1970; Van Morrison played in 1974 and 1980. Other artists included B.B. King, Gary Moore, Weather Report, Don Ellis, Crossfire, Buddy Guy, Camarón de la Isla, Soft Machine, Chuck Berry, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Eric Clapton, Luther Allison, Bo Diddley, Stan Getz, Airto Moreira, Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Ney Matogrosso, Charles Mingus, Etta James, Sonny Rollins, Son House, Count Basie, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Gilberto Gil, Ray Charles, James Booker, Hermeto Pascoal, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elis Regina, Les McCann, Eddie Harris, Pasadena Roof Orchestra, New Order, Jaco Pastorius, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, Toto, Zucchero Fornaciari, André Geraissati, Korni Grupa, Jan Akkerman, Joe Satriani, Status Quo, and many more.
The initiator and, until his tragic death in 2013, the head organizer, Claude Nobs, managed to bring an array of artists to Montreux, both established ones and newcomers. Following Claude's death, the organisation of the festival was handed over to Mathieu Jaton.
Main partners of the Festival are Parmigiani Fleurier, Manor, Heineken, Vaudoise Assurances and UBS.

Venue

The festival was originally held at the original Montreux Casino, which burned down in December 1971 during Frank Zappa's performance.
The festival was held then in other auditoriums in Montreux, until it could return to the rebuilt new Casino in 1975. The festival continued to grow, and in 1993, it moved to the larger Montreux Convention Centre. From 1995 through 2008, it occupied both the convention centre and the casino. Beginning with the 41st MJF in 2007, nightly performances of headliners were again moved mainly to the Montreux Musique & Convention Centre, owing mainly to logistics: the Casino is approximately from the Convention Centre, making it difficult for crew, artists and technical personnel to travel easily through crowded streets from one venue to the other. As of 2007, the Convention Centre hosts two main stages, Auditorium Stravinski and Miles Davis Hall, as well as the smaller Montreux Jazz Cafe, and several smaller open-air stages around the Centre. Additional themed shows are held on boats cruising the lake and train cars traveling the region, and various workshops and competitions are held at the nearby Montreux Palais and Le Petit Palais.

Venue history

Expansion

The festival changed in the 1980s: it grew dramatically and included an even wider variety of music styles. Jazz remained important, as did Brazilian music, but more rock and pop artists were also invited.
Miles Davis came to Montreux several times, British hard rock band Deep Purple were invited as headliners eight times, and Status Quo have headlined the festival twice. Other notable artists at Montreux were Sandra Max Roach, James Brown, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Wynton Marsalis, Art Blakey, John McLaughlin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wayne Shorter, Al Di Meola, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Cliff, Steel Pulse, Mike Oldfield, Brian May, Marvin Gaye, Rory Gallagher, Leonard Cohen, Nina Hagen, Eric Clapton, Queen, Phil Collins, Joe Cocker, Los Lobos, The Manhattan Transfer, Tracy Chapman, and Van Morrison again.
The expansion that began in the 1980s has continued since then – Montreux transformed from a jazz festival into a world music festival. Quincy Jones co-produced the festival from 1991 to 1993. By 1993, the festival had outgrown the Casino and moved to the larger Convention Centre. The number of visitors rose from 75,000 in 1980 to 120,000 in 1994, and an "Off-festival" developed on the lakeshore promenades and in the cafés of Montreux.
Many "regulars" returned, but many new artists also appeared on stage: Sting, Bob Dylan, Fats Domino, Deep Purple, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, Johnny Cash, Cheap Trick, Cheb Mami, Youssou N'Dour, Marianne Faithfull, Ice-T, Jazzmatazz, ZZ Top, Simply Red, Marisa Monte, George Benson, Jazzkantine, Alanis Morissette, David Bowie, Paul Simon. In 1999, the festival saw more than 220,000 visitors.
The festival has also played host to some well-known and talented student groups, including big bands and vocal ensembles. Young, talented musicians are encouraged to take part in several competitions.

Competitions

Three international competitions are organised by the Montreux Jazz Artists Foundation every year: Solo Piano, Guitar, and Voice. Each competition has its own jury composed of professionals and chaired by a world-renowned musician. In addition, until 2016, a local competition, the Tremplin Lémanique, was aimed at jazz bands that are based in one of the regions of the Léman lake: the French departments of Ain and Haute Savoie and the Swiss cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Valais.

Performances

Over 1300 artists have performed at the Festival from 1967 to 2016, with the most appearances by Herbie Hancock and B.B. King.
A number of performances have been released on DVD and/or Blu-ray by Eagle Rock Entertainment.

Discography

Albums recorded at the festival