Montreux Jazz Festival Workshop – July 14th 2021 – Montreux Palace

Going Back to the Roots: Montreux in Analog

Presented by:

Alain Dufaux – EPFL

Matthieu Latour – Nagra Audio

Subject:

Immerge yourself in the sound of Montreux as it was originally captured in the early years. Thanks to Montreux Sounds, a unique selection of tapes will be playback on a Nagra recorder and a special Nagra HD set-up to recreate the atmosphere and the essence of the Casino Kursaal and the Casino de Montreux. The tapes starts from 1967 through 1981.

Later on the Festival was recorded mostly in digital.

The partners:

Claude Nobs Foundation

https://www.claudenobsfoundation.com/

For the preservation and valorisation of Claude Nobs’ audiovisual collection from the Montreux Jazz Festival inscribed in 2013 on the UNESCO memory of the World register.

Montreux Sounds

https://www.montreuxsounds.com/

Montreux Sounds, Founded in 1973 by Claude Nobs and owned today by Thierry Amsallem, acquired all productions/coproductions of the Montreux Jazz Festival until 2013 which became one of the World’s largest private collection of “live” music recordings – all of which was recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) since 1967. Having started with jazz in the early days, over the years, the collection has grown and enriched itself with new genres of music ranging from blues and rock, to rap, soul, Latin and many more.

In 2007, Montreux Sounds joined forces with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) to create a unique, first of its kind, high resolution digital archive of the Festival. Considered both as an educational tool and research infrastructure, this audio-visual heritage has become a unique platform for students and researchers to innovate in fields such as acoustics, data science, archiving, musicology, museology, or neurosciences. Driven by the EPFL Cultural Heritage & Innovation Center, the “Montreux Jazz Digital Project” is an accelerator for innovation in technology, culture, social sciences and open science. Today the library has become one of the largest testimonies of live music in the World, with over 5,000 individual performances.  The collection is un-equaled and has a universal significance for current and future generations. As a result, in June 2013, it was inscribed to UNESCO’s international Memory of the World Register, the documentary equivalent of “World Heritage”.

Thierry Amsallem founded the Claude Nobs Foundation (public utility, independent entity) in 2014 to preserve and valorize the collection in partnership with EPFL.

EPFL

The Cultural Heritage and Innovation Center has been in charge of the Montreux Jazz Digital Project since 2010. The principal objectives of our team are :

1. Digitize and preserve audiovisual collections and heritages of major importance in Switzerland or all accross the world
2. Enrich and add value to such collections, organizing research and innovation projects with EPFL laboratories, start-ups, and partners

When digitized, the collections are turned into Research Infrastructures. They become a unique material in education and research, available as a playground to the students and to the innovation communities at EPFL and all around the world.

The Montreux Jazz Digital Project is the leading project of the Center since 2010. Defined in collaboration with the Claude Nobs Foundation, it drives activities in many labs and partners of EPFL, with hundreds of researchers involved, addressing a large range of domains from technology to archiving, sociology or art.

Audio Technology Switzerland

Audio Technology Switzerland is the designer and manufacturer of Nagra Audio products.

It is a company dedicated to excellence in capturing and reproducing the sound in its original essence and purity. Nagra products are used throughout the world by the most demanding sound engineers, researchers and music lovers.

The company provides the Nagra recorders, a Nagra IV-S as well as a full range of HD electronics, HD PREAMP and four mono HD AMP to provide the speakers with a huge amount of energy.

Stenheim  speakers

The analog experience will be made even more lifelike and realistic with Stenheim speakers, the model used for the workshop is Reference Ultime Three special Edition, the flagship of the Swiss company.

First track:

Charles Lloyd Quartet, 18 June 1967, Casino Kursaal

Keith Jarrett (p), Jack DeJohnette (dr), Charles Lloyd (ts, fl), Ron McClure (b)

Second track:

Ella Fitzgerald, 22 June 1969, Casino Kursaal

Ella Fitzgerald (voc), Tommy Flanagan (p), Frank De La Rosa (b), Ed Thigpen (dr)

Third track:

Al Jarreau, 03 July 1976, Casino Montreux

Al Jarreau ()

Fourth track:

Weather Report, 08 July 1976, Casino Montreux

Joe Zawinul (kbds), Wayne Shorter (ts, ss), Jaco Pastorius (b), Alex Acuña (dr), Manola Badrena (cga, perc)

Fifth track:

Ray Charles, 13 July 1978, Casino Montreux

Dizzy Gillespie (tp), Ray Charles (p, voc), Kenny Burrell (g), Mickey Roker (dr), George Duvivier (b), David “Fathead” Newman (ts), Hank Crawford (as)

Sixth track:

Ray Charles, 13 July 1978, Casino Montreux

Dizzy Gillespie (tp), Ray Charles (p, voc), Kenny Burrell (g), Mickey Roker (dr), George Duvivier (b), David “Fathead” Newman (ts), Hank Crawford (as)

With Esther Philips

Unknown track

Seventh track:

Monty Alexander And Friends, 19 July 1981, Casino Montreux

Monty Alexander (p), Ernest Ranglin (g), Gerry Wiggins (b), Othello Molineaux (steel dr), Jojo Mayer (dr), David Sanborn (as), Maurice Einhorn (hca)

Special Thanks:

Stephanie Aloysia Moretti from Montreux Jazz Artists Foundation

Thierry Amsallem who kindly took time to select these amazing tapes

Alain Dufaux who accepted to co-present the workshop

All at Audio Technology Switzerland, with a special note to Mario Jimenez for his expertise

Recording The Masters for the analog tapes