Montreux Jazz Festival review: a quaint jewel in the European festival crown
History is inescapable on the picture-perfect shores of Lake Geneva, and it makes artists raise their game.
“This is the home of greatness,” Janelle Monáe tells the crowd at Montreux Jazz Festival, namechecking just some of the plethora of era-defining artists who made this astonishingly beautiful city on the shores of Lake Geneva a home away from home. “So many shoulders that I stand on,” she rightly remarks.
History is inescapable at Montreux. A statue of Freddie Mercury sits proudly on the lake shore, while the piano from Queen’s studio here is displayed at the mountaintop chalet owned by late festival founder Claude Nobs alongside an overwhelming amount of musical memorabilia.
Since the festival’s inception in 1967, Nobs welcomed Miles Davis, Prince, David Bowie and more as Montreux regulars, and while its title as a jazz festival is mostly factually incorrect in the 21st century, its status as a unique jewel in the European festival crown is untarnished. To honour and protect this legacy, the festival recently embarked on the mammoth task of digitising its entire archives, and is left with the largest collection of its kind on the planet.
While days at Montreux are spent swimming in the crystal-clear waters of the lake and exploring the mountains above, from early evening the lake front is a bustling hub of activity. 80 per cent of the festival programming is free to the public, with buskers, up-and-coming artists and festival regulars playing across a plethora of stages. Walk far enough down the front and you’ll arrive at the Scène du Lac (Lake Stage), a new centrepiece for the festival in 2024.
Across the two-week programme, the likes of Justice, Massive Attack, The National, PJ Harvey and more play in the picturesque outdoor square, with the sun setting on the lake behind them. Rolling Stone UK arrive towards the end of the festival to witness the incredible continued rise of RAYE.
Since her well-publicised independence from her label deal, the singer has rightly become a new and long overdue superstar. She plays her set – watched by her Swiss grandfather, who is seeing his first ever RAYE show – with an infectious confidence. While her first decade was spent making pop hits that weren’t allowed to show her true personality, debut album My 21st Century Blues saw her become the artist she always told everyone she could be. Here, her songs are filtered through an old-timey jazz and soul lens with help from a superbly tight band. Through honest discussions of sexual abuse and addiction to vocal solos that set spines tingling, her’s is a set that raises the bar. Should Emily Eavis come calling in 2025 for a top spot at Worthy Farm, on this evidence RAYE would be more than ready.
The show would be almost impossible to follow for most, but Monáe’s tour behind The Age of Pleasure is so perfectly choreographed and conceived that it’s immediately enrapturing. A jamboree of rapping, singing, dancing and acting, it feels like the ultimate showcase of the multi-disciplinary artist.
The following night, things are less dramatic but equally compelling, with Michael Kiwanuka ushering in his new era with a superb sunset slot, before Jungle ride the wave of their new TikTok fame and prove themselves ready to handle the arenas that are set to greet them in the UK later this year.
Just down the road from the Lake Stage is the indoor Casino Stage, which famously burned to the ground in 1971 when a flare was lit during a Frank Zappa gig. Deep Purple were in attendance that night, and wrote ‘Smoke on the Water’ about the incident. “They burned down the gambling house / It died with an awful sound,” the iconic song goes, namechecking “funky Claude” and the festival founder’s attempts to minimise the tragedy. Suitably, the band returned to Montreux in 2024 to play the song in its spiritual home to a rapturous response.
Hosted in the Casino this year are the likes of new rap star D4vd, jazz-house afficionado Berlioz, André 3000’s New Blue Sun show and plenty more, linking the festival to its unparalleled history while not resting on its laurels.
From pop-up parties to late-night surprises (RAYE takes to the notorious ‘jam sessions’ stage after her main set to cover Nina Simone and more), there’s a buzz and unpredictable energy everywhere you look at Montreux. For the few lucky enough to win the chance to attend, there’s also a trip up a mountain for the festival’s annual party with Audemars Piguet. Held in a different and always-secret location each year, 2024’s edition sees a line-up of DJs including house heavyweight Black Coffee play in front of a picture-perfect scene of a setting sun and alpine mountain range.
As day turns to night, the revellers descend back down the mountain and onto the lake front, guaranteed to stumble into something else special at a festival where history and innovation collide like nowhere else on the musical calendar.