The Montreux Jazz Festival has unveiled its lineup for its 58th edition, which will take place from July 5 to 20. A total of 62 renowned groups and artists will perform on the festival’s two new stages: the Casino and the Lake. Mathieu Jaton, director of the festival, was my guest.
The return of the prodigy Jon Batiste, PJ Harvey, Kraftwerk, Diana Krall, Jamie Cullum, Air, Justice and even a crazy project by Andre 3000 will share the 2 new stages of the Montreux Jazz Festival during this month of July.
© MJF
The 2m2c, the traditional venue where the Montreux Jazz Festival takes place, is under renovation until 2025, the festival organizers had no choice but to change location while remaining in the heart of the city, inseparable from this musical event. The stage on the Lake had been tested in 2021 and it was a great success. For its part, the stage in the Casino is making its return after several years.
© Montreux Jazz Festival
Among the music legends present, we should mention the arrival of Lenny Kravitz on Tuesday, July 16 on the Lac stage. With his unique blend of rock, funk and soul, the 59-year-old artist promises to thrill the audience with his timeless hits and electrifying energy.
On Thursday, July 18, the Lac stage will host a harmonious musical marriage between rhythm and blues and soul through titles such as “BED” and “Make Me Feel”, works by Janelle Monáe and Raye.
“Raye, for me, she completely embodies what we love. In the same song, she goes into jazz, then she drifts into soul. You have rhythm, a hip-hop trait behind it. Then she goes back to vocals with a calm, incredible, confident voice. Above all, you see the happiness of this woman who plays and which is transmitted,” says the festival director, Mathieu Jaton.
A cult band whose letters of nobility are written in Montreux, Deep Purple will come to “set alight” the stage of the Lac on July 8. It was in 1971, during the fire at the Montreux Casino, during a Frank Zappa concert, that the group created its greatest hit “Smoke on the Water”. The band was supposed to give a concert there and record its next album. It was finally at the Grand Hôtel de Territet that Deep Purple was able to finish its project, thanks to the resilience of Claude Nobs, the founder of the festival. Since then, the group has played nine times at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The group will therefore be back to set the stage of the Lac alight, on the occasion of its 10th participation.
The only artist to have won Eurovision twice, Loreen will enchant the audience with her music mixing folk, pop and electro, with her hit track “Tattoo” and more recently “Is It True”, causing a sensation in the charts.
On this same stage, on Tuesday, July 9, Dionne Warwick will captivate the audience with her voice and timeless repertoire, offering a moment of grace and elegance with classics like “That’s What Friends Are For” and “Heartbreaker.”
How do you attract so much talent to the heart of French-speaking Switzerland? The task falls to an efficient and renowned programming team, including Michaela Maiterth and Rémi Bruggmann.
By bringing together music legends and emerging talents, the Montreux Jazz Festival 2024 promises to be an unmissable event for all music lovers, celebrating both the musical heritage of the past and the artistic innovation of the future, particularly with African sounds that are gaining popularity. “I think it’s part of a musical movement. It’s not new, but it’s what’s emerging right now, so for us, it seems very important to be able to present them at the festival. We could have waited 5 years for it to be more mainstream, but it’s now that it’s starting to emerge,” underlines one of the programmers, Rémi Bruggmann.
Adaptation web: Viviane Bisson
Interviews: Benjamin Smadja / Lena Vulliamy
