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.
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.
Play for the chance to win Charles Bradley's Black Velvet LP box set!
Since he discovered the blues in Germany in the late 1970s, Big Daddy Wilson has never been the same. Renowned as well as uncomfortable in public, the American has since become an intriguing bluesman, an artist who has spent a long time telling his deep stories in Europe before seeking to reclaim his native land. His latest album, Deep In My Soul, recorded between Memphis and Alabama, testifies to this brilliantly. Qwest TV met with him to hear more.
For the release of his sixth album, 99 Cent Dream, Qwest TV went to meet this improbable soul artist who delves into the roots of Mississippi. He has cleaned up in the blues clubs of Clarksdale and is now making his way internationally, delivering a message of love.
Aziza Brahim had a score to settle with censorship: after a concert in Paris was cancelled following diplomatic pressure, the Sahrawi singer made her return to the capital on April 26, armed with her intense rock blues, her fist raised, victorious.
The Texan defends his new album, Somebody Save Me, by asserting that he is a singer, and only a singer, because: that's how stories are told.
After two decades of playing as sideman, Bobby Sparks has recorded all over and at all moments. Here, he brings together a part of his work never before released in a first album featuring Roy Hargrove, Marcus Miller, Lucky Peterson, Michael League and other members who play as part of Snarky Puppy.
