This is how Quincy Jones once described the Montreux Jazz Festival. Jazz music originated in New Orleans around 1900. It came from a mixture of very different cultures - black and white, European and African traditions, blending together all kinds of musical styles. Former slaves met European immigrants and combined blues with spiritual songs, workers’ songs with lamentations from the slavery era. They added instruments and marching rhythms, adding influences from European folk songs as well.

Wind instruments, piano, guitar, double bass and cymbals soon became the fundamentals of jazz music. The first jazz movement was shaped by collaborative performances – the act of making music together, and it gave improvisation a breeding ground. This is what made jazz so enthralling, and led to its renaissance at the end of the 1930s. From the start, the organisers of the Montreux Jazz Festival demonstrated openness and a desire to incorporate all kinds of music – as is customary in jazz – a decision that has attracted artists to the festival for 56 years, and made it a wonderful platform for creative freedom.