Montreux Jazz Festival is expanding its foundation’s mission to make music accessible to all by offering a livestream option to 40-plus of its iconic performances.
The 57th annual festival begins on Friday (30 June) and will run for two weeks on the shores of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva, before concluding on Saturday 15 July.
Over 40 concerts from the iconic Auditorium Stravinski and Montreux Jazz Lab will be available to watch free of charge on the MJF website and YouTube channel.
Indie pop singer Tom Odell and pop band Simply Red will kick off the legendary event, with a livestream of their respective performances starting on Friday at 20.30 CET.
This year’s live-streamed acts feature “prestigious names, long-awaited returns and a combination of the best acts around and stars in the making,” a press release states.
They “form part of an illustrious line-up for the festival’s 57th edition which includes some of the music industry’s most prominent names, pioneers of the sixties and seventies, monuments of blues and jazz, pop icons and legends in the making,” it adds.
The lineup includes Ayra Starr, Ava Max, Bastian Baker, Callum Scott, Caroline Polachek, Cavetown, Chilly Gonzales, Chris Isaak, Ethan Bortnick, Gabriels, Gayle, Gilberto Gil, Guillaume Poncelet, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Idles, Iggy Pop, Jacob Banks, Joe Bonamassa, Katie Gregson-Macleod and Lovejoy.
Jeff Beck performing at the 41st Montreux Jazz Festival— (AP)
Shows from Maisie Peters, Marcus Miller, Morcheeba, Nile Rodgers & Chic, NNAVY, Olivia Dean, Pip Millet, Rema, Roberta Sá, Simply Red, Sofiane Pamart, Stacey Ryan, The Blaze, The Rose, The Teskey Brothers, Tom Odell and Worakls Orchestra, will also be live-streamed.
A huge programme of free activities and performances will also be offered, taking place across 11 stages with artists including “hyped indie band Last Dinner Party, Detroit house master Moodymann, the boundary-breaking trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, German electronic prodigy Skee Mask and London-based multi-instrumentalist Mansur Brown”.
For the full event programme and tickets, visit the Montreux Jazz Festival website.
Established in 1967 by Claude Nobs as a way “to shake up” the otherwise sleepy little Swiss town, the world’s second-largest annual jazz festival has played a pivotal role in providing a platform for Black American musicians to gain newfound respect in Europe.
As it grew, it started featuring a range of different musical genres, from blues to rock and soul, booking hugely popular bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Santana.
The Independent is the exclusive global news partner of Montreux Jazz Festival 2023.
