Festivals & events
Montreux Jazz Festival International
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- Festival: international editions of the Montreux Jazz Festival
Born in Montreux in 1967 and run since 2013 by Mathieu Jaton, the Montreux Jazz Festival does not stop at its two July weeks by the lake. Through Montreux Jazz International (MJI), it takes its name and know-how abroad: to Japan since 2015, China since 2021, Miami since 2024 and South Africa since 2026, not forgetting Rio de Janeiro. The story began in the late 1970s, in Claude Nobs’s day, with sister festivals in Detroit, São Paulo and Atlanta. This page brings together these international editions, their venues, their posters and some of the artists who played them. On the map, this page is pinned at Geneva Airport, where the festival also runs a Montreux Jazz Café: to reach these editions, you take a plane.
The Montreux Jazz Festival around the world
Host cities, continent by continent
This is where the Montreux name has travelled, past and present (Montreux Jazz Festival):
- Europe: Montreux (Switzerland), home of the festival since 1967, and Monaco.
- Americas: Miami, Detroit and Atlanta (United States); São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
- Africa: Franschhoek (South Africa), since 2026; Marrakech and Essaouira (Morocco), in 2006.
- Asia: Tokyo and Yokohama (Japan), Hangzhou and Suzhou (China), Singapore.
The sister festivals of Claude Nobs’s day
From the late 1970s, the Montreux name travelled with sister festivals, “from Detroit to São Paulo, and from Atlanta to Sapporo” (Montreux Jazz Festival). The file that brought the festival’s archives into UNESCO’s Memory of the World register notes that from the 1980s Claude Nobs launched or supported editions in Atlanta, Tokyo, Kawasaki and Singapore (UNESCO).
The longest-lived is Detroit’s. Founded in 1980 by Robert McCabe, then president of Detroit Renaissance, it was called the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival and grew until 1991 in partnership with the Swiss festival. It kept the name until 1999 and still lives on today as the Detroit Jazz Festival, at Hart Plaza on the riverfront (Detroit Historical Society).
In Atlanta, the Montreux Atlanta Music Festival took over the city’s great Piedmont Park; a 1993 poster records it (Country Music Hall of Fame). Monaco is also among the cities that hosted an edition under the Montreux name (Montreux Jazz Festival).
The Detroit festival today: Detroit Jazz Festival.
Morocco: Marrakech and Essaouira (2006)
In 2006, its 40th anniversary year, the festival multiplied its editions outside Switzerland: Singapore in March, Atlanta from 1 to 4 September, and a project in Morocco. Claude Nobs put it simply: Montreux has 20,000 inhabitants and its festival had reached some 250,000 spectators a year. “We can’t go any further,” he said; so the festival’s name and know-how travelled instead (swissinfo.ch).
After eighteen months of negotiations, the agreement with Marrakech was signed on 9 July 2006 at the Montreux Palace (Bladi.net). The initiative came from the Moroccan city, whose mayor, Omar Jazouli, recalled that it is a crossroads of Andalusian, Arab and African music, where the roots of jazz lie. Claude Nobs pointed to its proximity and the shared French language; the festival had also held talks in South Africa, where it would finally settle twenty years later, in Franschhoek (swissinfo.ch).
The programme announced for the first weekend of November 2006, from the 3rd to the 5th, echoed the spirit of Montreux: major ticketed concerts at the Théâtre Royal in Marrakech, free concerts in the Menara gardens, music in riads, screenings on Jemaa el-Fna square, electro nights at the club Le Pacha, and a stop in Essaouira, the former Mogador, on the ocean (swissinfo.ch, Le Matin).
Japan: the Montreux Jazz Festival Japan, from Tokyo to Yokohama
The Japanese edition is the oldest of today’s editions. The Montreux Jazz Festival Japan was born in Tokyo in 2015, with an opening night at the Liquidroom in Shibuya on 1 October (Resident Advisor). It soon found its place as an urban festival where music meets art and fashion.
After a pause due to the pandemic, it returned in December 2024 at Pia Arena MM, a Yokohama venue in the Minato Mirai district, from 6 to 8 December (Vitality.Swiss). Herbie Hancock headlined, alongside Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, Makoto Ozone’s trio, Petrolz, WONK and Bialystocks. The 2025 edition, from 5 to 7 December, opened at BAROOM in Aoyama, Tokyo, then paid tribute to Herbie Hancock for his 85th birthday, with pianist Makoto Ozone (Jasumo).
Official website: Montreux Jazz Festival Japan.
China: MJF China, from Hangzhou to Suzhou
MJF China was born in October 2021 in Hangzhou, at the Sofitel Hangzhou Westlake on the shore of West Lake, with the hotel group Accor as partner (That’s). Its theme, “When East meets West”, set the tone: a meeting of the music of East and West. The poster of that first edition, a dragon playing the erhu above a pavilion, opens the carousel below.
The festival then moved to the shores of Yangcheng Lake, between Suzhou and Kunshan. In 2023, from 27 September to 2 October, it brought some thirty bands and more than 140 musicians to the Fairmont Yangcheng Lake, including guitarist Mike Stern, Sweden’s Dirty Loops, singer Gretchen Parlato and Hong Kong jazzmen Ted Lo and Eugene Pao (Shine).
Since 2024 it has been held at the SANGHA Retreat by OCTAVE, on the Yangcheng Lake peninsula in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). The 4th edition, from 24 to 26 October 2025, joined forces with the Healing Arts Festival: more than sixty free concerts and workshops, a four-hand piano duet by Jeff Lorber and Yang Ce, the Portuguese guitar of Marta Pereira da Costa and NaraBara, a band blending jazz with Mongolian folk music (MJF China). The poster of the 5th edition announces dates from 30 October to 1 November 2026.
Official website: MJF China.
United States: MJF Miami, with Jon Batiste
MJF Miami was launched from 1 to 3 March 2024 at The Hangar in Coconut Grove. Pianist and singer Jon Batiste, co-owner and ambassador of the event, played two nights, joined among others by Cécile McLorin Salvant; the bill also featured Daniela Mercury, Daryl Hall, The Wailers and Cory Henry, and every night ended with a jam session, just as in Montreux.
The 2nd edition, from 28 February to 2 March 2025, took place at Regatta Cove, a 1,500-capacity waterfront site. Janelle Monáe headlined, and Jon Batiste hosted “La Descarga”, a night of Latin music, with Cimafunk.
In 2026 the festival grew to five nights, from 25 February to 1 March, and reached Miami Beach for the first time. The opening night at the Miami Beach Bandshell celebrated the Miles Davis centennial with his estate: the Miles Electric Band of his nephew, drummer Vince Wilburn Jr., and the Kind of Blue Acoustic Band, with Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Ibrahim Maalouf as guests. Miles Davis had played Montreux ten times between 1973 and 1991 (Shore Fire Media). Back at The Hangar, Jon Batiste and Trombone Shorty celebrated New Orleans, and Nile Rodgers & Chic shared a night with Toto.
Official website: MJF Miami.
South Africa: the Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek
The festival made its African debut from 27 to 29 March 2026 in Franschhoek, a wine village in the Cape Winelands an hour from Cape Town. Founded by Mark Goedvolk and presented by Nedbank, it brought together nearly forty artists (Business Day).
The main stage, The Arches, stood on the lawns of the Huguenot Monument, facing mountains and vineyards. A second stage, the Jazz Village, was set up in the village’s historic Dutch Reformed church, and the “Montreux Mile” linked the two with wine tastings and local food. On Sunday, the music moved out onto the street for free (Cape Town Magazine).
On the bill: Mali’s Salif Keita, Robert Glasper with Lalah Hathaway and Bilal, Róisín Murphy, Wet Wet Wet, Ezra Collective, and South Africans Thandiswa Mazwai and Mandisi Dyantyis. Some 5,000 people a day and a sold-out first edition: the festival returns from 19 to 21 March 2027 (Time Out).
Official website: Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek.
Brazil: from São Paulo to the Rio Montreux Jazz Festival
A great lover of Latin American music, Claude Nobs forged early ties with São Paulo. Thanks to producer Marco Mazzola, Brazilian artists came to Montreux in 1978: Gilberto Gil was the first, at a Brazilian night shared with the band A Cor do Som (Brasil de Fato). That same year São Paulo held its 1st International Jazz Festival, from 11 to 18 September 1978, and the two festivals shared a poster: Montreux the right way up, São Paulo upside down. Gilberto Gil kept coming back to Montreux: on 15 July 2015 he shared the Auditorium Stravinski stage with Caetano Veloso.
Since 2019 the same Marco Mazzola has programmed the Rio Montreux Jazz Festival. Its 3rd edition, from 11 to 14 October 2023, took place in the Sugarloaf cable-car park on Morro da Urca, with two stages (Villa-Lobos and Village) and 2,000 people a day, plus more than thirty free concerts along the seafront and at Fort Copacabana. The line-up included Hermeto Pascoal, Ney Matogrosso, João Bosco, Mike Stern and Billy Cobham (Diário do Rio).
Official website: Rio Montreux Jazz Festival.
Closer to home: the festival elsewhere in Switzerland
Without taking a plane, you can also find the festival outside Montreux: in the Vaud Alps, at the Théâtre du Villars Palace, with the MJF Spotlight Sessions since 2023; near Lausanne, in Crissier, at the Montreux Jazz Club Millennium, opened in 2024; and in the Montreux Jazz Cafés of Lausanne and Geneva.
Following the international editions
Line-ups, dates and tickets are published on each edition’s official website:
Related artists :Claude NobsMiles DavisHerbie HancockNile Rodgers