Erroll Garner

Erroll Garner (1921-1977), a self-taught American jazz pianist, was one of the greatest melodists in the history of jazz, author of “Misty” and of the legendary album “Concert by the Sea”. He played the Rose d’Or of Montreux in 1966, a year before the jazz festival was born.

Erroll Garner: jazz before the festival

April 1966: at the Rose d’Or

On 29 April 1966, a year before the first edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, Erroll Garner sat down at the piano of the Montreux Rose d’Or. Swiss television captured the moment: the small man with the orchestral touch, seated on his telephone directory, launched one of those improvised introductions he alone knew, before landing, exactly, on the theme.

Accompanied, as he often was in that era, by Eddie Calhoun on bass and Kelly Martin on drums, Garner reminds us that jazz was already in Montreux even before Claude Nobs invented his festival there.

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“Misty” and “Concert by the Sea”

Born in Pittsburgh, Garner could not read a note of music, and yet his style — orchestral voicings, a right hand delayed over a metronomic left — remains inimitable. In 1954 he wrote “Misty”, which would become one of the most-performed standards of the 20th century; in 1955 his concert, recorded almost by chance in California, “Concert by the Sea”, sold over a million copies.

So when he came to Montreux in 1966, Erroll Garner was already a living legend — and the Rose d’Or gave itself the luxury of hosting him.