Who was the first woman to headline the Montreux Jazz Festival?
The shoreline of Lake Geneva in Switzerland is typically a tranquil place, but for two weeks at the start of July every year, it is taken over by the blaring blitz of the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Ever since its inception in 1967, the festival has become a staple of the Swiss music calendar as well as that of the rest of the world, with artists from seemingly every walk of life, branching from Miles Davis to Quincy Jones, lining up to become an integral part of the iconic parade. But given what we already know about jazz, it also begs an obvious, but slightly trepidatious, question: how many women have they ever invited to share the platform?
Well, for once, we can all actually breathe a sigh of relief because it was actually a pretty even playing field from very early on in the festival’s tenure. Although its first ever iteration consisted of a main line-up of Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, it wasn’t long – indeed, the following year – when a woman graced the stage. However, this was no ordinary female artist, and instead an absolute powerhouse of the genre. After all, there could only be one Nina Simone.
It goes without saying that Simone was soon joined in her ranks by many other female stalwarts of jazz, from Ella Fitzgerald to Grace Jones. But her indelible imprint on Montreux has never been forgotten, with her fronting the festival a further four times over the course of her career, with her last appearance taking place in 1990. Between iconic performances and her sublime artistry, this was a woman whose place in jazz history could never be disputed.
What was Nina Simone’s most famous performance?
Although Simone’s legacy is shrouded in an untouchable aura of greatness so much of the time, some of her most famous moments, particularly in respect of the Montreux Jazz Festival, came when she let the guard down to see the real – and sometimes vulnerable – woman underneath. The starkest occasion in which this was exposed arrived in the summer of 1976, when Simone took to the stage for what should have been a routine headline slot. The reality was that she produced something very different.
On the night of July 3rd, the artist who usually presented with a rod of steel up her spine suddenly appeared skittish, vacant, and in moments, even perhaps afraid. She had fled the United States and her abusive husband in the earlier part of the decade and had found solace in Liberia, but her return to the stage in Switzerland was a tacit acknowledgement that she had to restart her career because there were no assets left. It was an all-or-nothing gamble, and one that, in the moment, no one knew had paid off.
As much as it was hardly regarded as one of her finest performances, that seminal moment in 1976 proved that the Montreux Jazz Festival was not just an event held in the close quarters of those in attendance, but a marker of excellence and pressure to everyone else around the world. It was, of course, testament to a woman like Simone that she would be selected to return time and time again, but it also proved that even the most gleaming stars could be intimidated by its harsh glare.
