Montreux Jazz Festival bends genres with star-powered line-up
The 49th Montreux Jazz Festival is set to open in Switzerland early this month with a lineup that includes jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea as well as Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, The Chemical Brothers and Santana.
One of the biggest jazz festivals in the world, the Montreux Jazz Festival features a huge number of paid and free events spread throughout Montreux, on the banks of Lake Geneva.
In 2015 organizers are featuring several notable musical pairings: Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, performing songs from their joint album of jazz standards, plus Brazilian artists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil and jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea.
The festival has long been a genre-bending endeavor, and this year's program features Mary J. Blige, Lionel Richie, Alabama Shakes, Lenny Kravitz, Damien Rice, Portishead and other headline-grabbers from across the worlds of pop, indie and R&B.
Rising stars include Leon Bridges, Jack Garratt and James Blake, while other indie-rooted performers such as Hot Chip, Foals, James Vincent McMorrow, SBTRKT and The Staves further broaden the appeal.
The Montreux festival was founded in 1967 and began extending invitations outside the jazz world in the 1970s, when performers such as Marianne Faithful and Pink Floyd appeared on the line-up. The festival continued to grow the following decade and has changed and added venues several times to accommodate its increasing scope.
Tickets for this year's multi-week event -- which runs July 3-18 -- are still available and include all-access passes at around €1226 per person, plus customized packages and tickets for individual events.
Find tickets and more information at www.montreuxjazzfestival.com/en.
