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MUSIC

Montreux Jazz Festival debuts live streaming

Selected gigs by bands including Morcheeba and London Grammar will be live streamed over the internet from the Montreux Jazz Festival, which starts today.

Published: 4 July 2014 13:04 CEST
Montreux Jazz Festival debuts live streaming
Prince performs at last year's festival. Photo: Olivier Bruchez

The initiative, which is a first for the festival, involves certain gigs held in the Montreux Jazz Lab venue.

The 48th edition kicks off today with Glaswegian songstress Amy McDonald headlining the first night in the Stravinski Auditorium.

Over the course of two weeks, to July 19th, Montreux will welcome top names including Stevie Wonder, Pharrell Williams, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Jamie Cullum, Chris Rea, Damon Albarn, Ed Sheeran, Babyshambles and Massive Attack.

On announcing the programme in April festival organizers said that bringing soul icon Wonder to Montreux had been among the "most cherished dreams" of its founder "Funky" Claude Nobs, who died in a skiing accident in January 2013.

In an interview with newspaper Le Matin this week, festival boss Mathieu Jaton, who took over after Nobs’ death, said this year’s artists are continuing the creative spirit engendered by Nobs.

“What I find marvellous this year is that when I discussed things with the artists or their management, they in some way have taken on Claude’s mantel – they want to come here with a project. Whether it’s Stephen Eicher, Damon Albarn, Chris Rea or Monty Alexander.

“It’s as though they’ve said that since the festival’s founder is no longer here, it’s up to them to do something special.”

But Jaton has little knowledge of what Happy star Williams is planning for his Montreux debut.

“All I know is that he arrives on Monday [July 7th], the day of his concert. And that he is a fan of improvised jam sessions. Pharrell has had a busy year. It all depends on his mood, his desire.”

In addition to the big names, Jaton’s insider tips for top gigs include Brooklyn soul outfit The Daptone, English talent Benjamin Clementine, Ethiopian veteran musician Mulatu Astatke and Swedish singer Lykke Li.

Elsewhere, organizers have cancelled the 26th annual Jazz Parade in Marly, in the canton of Fribourg, which was due to run from July 3rd to 12th, due to “internal problems”, reports newspaper 20 Minutes.

The festival, which attracted 35,000 spectators in 2013, was suspended by authorities in the district of Sarine after they found significant organizational flaws, particularly surrounding security at the event.

The site of the festival also had problems due to recent heavy rains.

For more information about Montreux Jazz Festival visit its website.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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