Landscape of tunes
Music genre evolution of Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux has one of the most beautiful waterfront walks in Europe. The perfect scenery of Lake Geneva with Swiss Alps has attracted and inspired many. From Lord Byron to many iconic names of popular music, it is a place of rich history and legacy.
As the legendary Freddie Mercury has said: "If you want peace of soul, come to Montreux".
Montreux has a colorful history in music - it hosted many iconic artists: Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Santana, Deep Purple, Queen and others. Besides hosting a Jazz festival, it is a home to a famous Casino and Mountain Studios.
It was in Mountain Studios where Queen have recorded iconic songs such as Under Pressure with David Bowie, as well as their last album while Freddie was still alive - Innuendo.
You might be familiar with the Deep Purple song Smoke on the Water. The famous guitar riff has actually been inspired by events in Montreux. Besides stating Montreux in the lyrics, the event described the event of the Montreux Casino burning down in 1971.
Luckily, no serious injury has happened in the event. As the smoke started spreading over the waters of Lake Geneva, Deep Purple has observed - and the rest is history.
Montreux Jazz Festival is the second largest annual jazz festival in the world. Held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline, it has a rich tradition since 1967. It has hosted many icons of the era: Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans and others. Originally a pure Jazz festival, it has opened up to other musical influences in 1970s. Since then many famous artists have appeared: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, B.B. King among many talented and recognized artists.
In 1970s the Montreux Jazz Festival has become more open to hosting many different genres besides Jazz.
It has enriched the festival by adding a plethora variaty to the musical experience. The landscape of tunes has expanded ever since over time.
That variety has been nurtured by supporting many artists - while some genres gain and loose popularity, Montreux is a boiling pot of
colorful sounds and cultures.
To celebrate the long tradition of the festival which is all but a "Jazz" festival, we show the explosion of variety of genres and subgenres over the years.
Truly in tradition of Montreux the evolution of genres over years resembles the landscape of Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva.
We invite you to explore the rich history of the festival through our interactive visualization. Hovering over will provide more information about a flow of genre,
single click will give you an opportunity to learn more about a genre through Wikipedia description on the right. Double click will immerse you into a variety of subgenres
that live under an umbrella of main genres appearing at concerts over years.
I am a very simple card. I am good at containing small bits of information.
To learn more about rich history and commemorate more than half of century of festival concerts and artists that make the essence of every festival, we present a glance on the legends. It shows all the artists and associated genres and captures many years for you to explore.
