Summer playlists, they end up accompanying moments that stay with us in sepia tone for a long while to come. With outside revelling an absolute must, the summer playlist is proof of the necessity for great sounds at this time of year, perhaps more than any other.
In talking to Qwest TV, Carla Bley laughs a lot as she sifts through some of her significant historical moments of melody-making and free improvisations and even dredges up a memory that she has never talked about before.
With our 2019 part one playlist, Qwest TV offers the chance to revisit and refresh the musical moments that have stood out from the rest. The quality of a great song, while it hits us hard the first time we hear it, always grows and changes over time. To take stock at this mid-way point is to celebrate the freshest and most infectious new music. Wrap your ears round these.
The Montreux Jazz Festival archives were officially declared part of the UNESCO Memory of the World collection back in 2013. That should tell you all that you need to know about the kind of cultural value they offer. Since 1967, the event has acted as a cradle for great musical moments, each one giving off a quality of timelessness as well as feeling fixed to its own particular period. While it can sometimes feel difficult to pin-point and identify these moments whilst they are happening, the vast visual history on offer – through filmed concerts – allows us to revisit and refresh what has since past into collective memory.
In the festival’s 40th anniversary year, both Ménard and Simard are retiring from active roles in rallying the party. Qwest TV spoke with Ménard about the festival’s history, his role as artistic director and what his highlights were.
ECM Records didn't put out the daring first albums of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but the German label did produce some of that exciting and enduring band's best developed and tightest programs.
