1989 Montreux Jazz Festival (long)
guy.f.klose
Festival...the program is interesting so I thought I would reprint
it here. At the end of the list, I'll add some random thoughts
about some of the jazz festivals which I've attended. Sorry about
the length of this file...but if you're interested in doing some
European jazz festivals, maybe this will be useful information.
Montreux Jazz Festival 7-22 July '89
Fri 7 JUL Rock 'N Roll (every night has a title)
Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians
Surprise Artist
Little Feat
Sat 8 JUL Africa/Brazil Night
Pepeu Gomes
Youssou N'Dour
Os Paralamas Do Sucesso
Jair Rodrigues
Sun 9 JUL Michael, Paolo and Ramsey
Paolo Conte & Son Big Band
Michael Franks
Ramsey Lewis Quartet
Mon 10 JUL Canta Brasil
Joao Bosco
Nana Caymmi & Wagner Tiso
Joao Gilberto
Caetano Veloso
Tue 11 JUL Spyke, The Beloved Entertainer
Larry Carlton
Elvis Costello
Wed 12 JUL Etta and the Blues Brother
The Blues Brothers Band
Buckwheat Zydeco
Etta James and the Roots Band
Thu 13 JUL Formidable Rhythm 'N Blues
Bobby Blue Bland
B. B. King
Denise LaSalle
The Malaco Rhythm Section
Little Milton
Mosley & Johnson
The Muscle Shoals Horns
Johnnie Taylor
Blues Jam Session featuring Luther Allison & Roy Rogers
Fri 14 JUL Soul Summit
The Drifters
Surprise Artist
Sat 15 JUL Blue Note Records 50th Anniversary
Elaine Elias
Stanley Jordan
Lou Rawls
Dianne Reeves
Tommy Smith
Sun 16 JUL Tanita!
Brendan Croker and the 5 O'Clock Shadows
Tanita Tikaram
Mon 17 JUL Small & Big Band
Van Morrison + Georgie Fame with the Dallas Jazz Orchestra
Miami Dade Community College
Super Guitar Trio (Al Di Meola, Larry Corryell, Birelli LaGrene)
Tue 18 JUL Nonesuch Night
The Kronois Quartet
Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares
The World Saxaphone Quartet
Wed 19 JUL Swingin' and Rockin'
Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters
Spyro Gyra
Steps Ahead
Thu 20 JUL All-Star Gala Night!
George Benson, feat. McCoy Tyner and his trio
Wild Bill Davis
Dizzy Gillespie / Phil Woods All-Stars
Stephane Grappelli
Carmen McRae
James Morrison (<-- this guy is great!)
Fri 21 JUL Miles and Friends
Miles Davis
Gary Herbig
Eddie Palmieri
Sat 22 JUL All Night Long (the traditional ending for Montreux)
The Jazz Ambassadors, USA
The Original Chico Hamilton Quintet
Manhattan Transfer
Modern Jazz Quartet
Ivan Lins
Al Green
Albert King
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ray Barretto and his Salsa Band
George Duke / Stanley Clarke
Prices are steep...35 to 95 SFr per night (last year the exchange rate
was about $0.75 per SFr).
And much, much more...actually, there is a small club in the Casino,
called Platinum, where they have other groups play, some of which are not
well-known. The list this year includes: Andy J. Forest, Crossroads,
Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings, New Association, Ray Brown Trio, Jimmy
Heath Quartet, Jerry Tachoir Quartet, Festa Group, Reta Weber & Bruno Spoerri,
Werner Ludi and Burhan Ocal, Kenny Burrell Quartet, Barlach Zylkus, Bernard
Berkhouts Swingmates, Uli Lenz Trio, The Hungarian Bop-Art Orchestra,
The Square, Carlos Ward, Sigi Finkel Powerstation, Paul Sutin and friends,
Ray Russel and guests, E.S.A., and Wolfgang Muthspiel Trio.
There are also free concerts on the terrace of the Casino, and some other
places around town, which feature other groups. Last year a bunch of
college bands would come into town and play some of those gigs. They also
have Cinema Why Not (ad. free , which will be showing Rocky Horror Picture
Show, Blues Brothers, The Wall (Pink Floyd), Bird Now (dir. Marc Hunaux),
and Bird.
****
Last year I attended three jazz festivals in Europe...the Northsea Jazz
Festival in Den Haag, The Netherlands, the Montreux Jazz Festival, in
Switzerland, and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy. My two
favorites were the Northsea and Montreux, and they are both different.
The Northsea runs over the course of a weekend, with about twelve to
sixteen hours of music a day, on multiple venues. Montreux runs over the
course of two weeks with one major venue, the Casino. Den Haag is a very
friendly place...Montreux is a distinct resort town, and is very expensive.
Last year's trip was thrown together about three weeks before actually
leaving. I got most of my information from a newspaper-like publication
called "Jazz Times", which is one of the only publications I've found
that will give press to a jazz festival before it actually happens.
In other words, Downbeat is great, but they mostly print festival reviews,
not previews.
If I had a few dollars saved up again this year, I would think nothing about
hopping on a plane to Geneva or Amsterdam again, and stay for a week or so.
Both festivals are easily accessible by train, and accommodations can be found
close to the festival sites. Tickets for the festivals aren't difficult
either...you would call or write for an order form, order the tickets you
want, send them an international money order, and then pick up the tickets
when you are over there. The only negative part I found was that these
festivals are pretty popular and tend to sell out. I also found that the
crowds tend to push over there.
I'll definitely be going back to those festivals, but I want to hit a couple
more here in the US first, like New Orleans and Monterey. I'm a regular
attendee at the Newport festival, but it really is a limited jazz festival
compared to some of these other festivals. Newport will have about ten
acts over the course of a Saturday and Sunday, playing Noon to 6pm. Compared
to ninety or more acts that appear at the Northsea, Newport is limited.
Here are my notes from last year's Montreux Jazz Festival:
Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux, Switzerland
July 1-17 (1988)
The Montreux Festival is entirely different than the Northsea. First of
all, jazz happens on one stage starting at around 8:30pm every night.
During the day, many groups would perform (for free) at different locations
around Montreux. Anyway, the nightly concerts were held at the Casino in
Montreux, right on the banks of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva).
Montreux was very expensive. Hotel rooms for two people, started at around
$100 per night. For adventurous travellers, there are many other options,
including pensions, hostels, and camping. For one with a car, staying in a
nearby town probably isn't a bad idea. It seemed that there was enough
parking around Montreux.
I was there two nights (July 11 and 12). The first night was the unofficial
big band night. The evening opened up with the Gerry Mulligan Big Band (I
had already seen them play at the Northsea). Next up was the Brigham Young
University jazz ensemble, called "Synthesis". Shortly into their program,
they brought out guest Randy Brecker (tpt). I thought it would be extremely
tough to top their set, but they were followed by the Kansas University Jazz
ensemble. They brought out guest artist Bill Watrous (trb). Their set was
even better than the others! It was a very energetic evening of big band jazz.
The next night was great...the music started off with a quartet which
featured multi-instrumentalist James Morrison (trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone,
euphonium...excellent range, technique, and jazz chops on each...I found him
simply amazing). Place James Morrison on your list of people to see live
someday...I have a feeling we'll hear lots more of him.
The second group was led by blues guitarist and vocalist Robben Ford.
The audience loved him, however my view was a bit more tame. He has
plenty of talent, I just wasn't all that impressed with his show. My
attention was more turning towards George Benson, the following act.
With regards to George Benson, I really enjoyed his show. Jazz purists
like me can rest assured that George Benson is playing jazz again, even
though half his show is made up of the pop-oriented music that's earned
him scads of money. The concert began with a few of his more recent tunes,
but then he began to sing "Moody's Mood for Love" from one of his earlier
albums. After his vocal and guitar solos, he brought out James Moody for
more solo work (on his own tune). After that tune, Clark Terry joined them
for a couple. Then they were joined on stage by Randy Brecker, James Morrison
on trombone, Robin Kenyatta on tenor sax, and
Chuck Mangione. All of these cats launched off into an unbelievable jam
session! Chuck seems to be very popular with European audiences, so the
jam session seemed to orient itself towards him (even though all the others
seemed to outplay him by far). After the jam session, George went on to
play more of his own music for a very enthusiastic audience.
The concerts were all very expensive...open seating tickets for the big
band night were about 35SF (~$20) per person. For George Benson, they
were about 65SF (~$45). To get a reserved seat, one had to shell out
(in advance, not the night of the show) an extra 20SF (~$13). Due to
the open seating arrangement, and the fact that they oversold the George
Benson concert, I would probably shell out the extra $ for a reserved seat.
I met a guy at the Northsea festival that claims that the Montreux festival
is moving away from a jazz festival and more towards a regular music
festival...this year's program even included James Taylor, so there is no
doubt about his feelings.
****
If there are any questions that I can answer, feel free to contact me...
Guy
--
Guy Klose
{att|arpa}!angate!milo
Bj|rn Lisper
know that the annual Jazz & Blues festival in Stockholm will take place the
first weekend of July this year. This is an outdoor event at Skeppsholmen, a
pleasant little island quite centrally situated in Stockholm. Typically
this festival will start Friday night and then go on for the whole Saturday
and Sunday. If the weather is fine, this can be a great event. (If it's
raining, though, it's a mess.) I haven't seen the program for this year yet,
but usually the program is a strong mix of both international and local jazz
and blues artists, ranging from traditional to modern. Some acts I've seen
there previous years are, from the top of my head, B.B. King, Arto Moreira &
Flora Purim, John McLaughlin & Jonas Hellborg, Robert Cray, Modern Jazz
Quartet, Michal (sp?) Urbaniak, Joe Zawinul (although he too late realized
that voltage in Sweden is 220V/50 Hz, so his electronic equipment more or
less died), Courtney Pine, and local but nevertheless interesting artists
such as Magnus Persson, Eje Thelin, Rolf Wikstrom, Bill's Boogie Band and
others. (This list is somewhat lopsided, because of my own musical taste. I
usually don't care too much for the more traditional jazz acts but there's a
bunch of these every year too.) Day passes are likely to be in the $20-25
range (around SEK 150).
If there is interest, I can post a playing list and more detailed
information when I have it.
Bjorn Lisper
hedger@inmet
Gee just what I've always wanted at the Montreux Jazz Festival.....
Edie Brickell and Miles with friends he's probably never met.....
Looks like George Wein disease to me....
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