An occasion that is not to be missed, the annual La Défense Jazz Festival has been gaining more and more traction year on year.
The Qwest TV roundup brings you a selection of the best new content from the platform along with a run down of what's caught our eye in the music world this week.
Jump into mid-August on Qwest TV, featuring the most interesting pieces of recent news from the music we love, and the hottest new content to enjoy on our video streaming platform!
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.
We Out Here – it started as a compilation album, and it since snowballed into something much bigger; a brand of jazz? An event? A movement? Whatever stamp you want to put on it, one thing is clear to see and hear: Gilles Peterson’s inaugural We Out Here festival this August is the result of a buzz that has seen jazz and related music break from its box and spill out into the mainstream.
Brazilian music, and MPB specifically, is and always has been an expression of Brazilian spirit: “I believe that Música Popular Brasileira is the greatest symbol of our national identity,” asserted the singer Joyce, a native of Rio de Janeiro.
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.
As Guest of the month, Youssou Ndour, the "king of mbalax," has selected his favorite programs for you, all available on Qwest TV!
