11 of the greatest Festival regulars talk about their most moving moments on stage in this exclusive web series.
As a rule, they don’t really like that. Memories, archives, concerts of yesteryear; they get dizzy from those years flashing past. Because they are living artists. They only think about the now, and the best concert is always the one coming up. And yet, with Al Jarreau, with David Sanborn, in the distant gaze of Dianne Reeves, in a certain movement of Carlos Santana’s head, with Quincy Jones and the others, something astonishing – and powerful – happens.
For in an instant they understand that they are looking at something quite distinct from the picture album of the world’s greatest festival: it was a segment of the memory of a century’s music that was on display in the recordings we show them. Of course, seeing musicians once again, remembering a magical evening or a detail about a concert that was on a razor’s edge, they laugh, and share. But they are at pains to repeat that what they experienced, and what they hope to experience again, in Montreux, would be possible nowhere else.
« Archives: when they tell their Montreux », a web series with Dianne Reeves, Al Jarreau, John McLaughlin, George Benson, Charles Lloyd, Angélique Kidjo, David Sanborn, Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Marcus Miler and Gilberto Gil.
Text by Christophe Passer
