The festival's 16-day run will encompass the huge array of styles for which it has become famous, offering performances ranging from jazz giants like Chick Corea and Gary Burton to rock artists like Wilco, Jeff Beck, and Norah Jones to international favourites such as Youssou N'Dour and Cacau Brasil. The festival's venues are spread between three main buildings, outdoor performance areas, the Young Planet youth club, and "venues on the move": buses, boats, and trains hosting performances.
Meyer Sound's involvement with the festival was built on the longtime friendship between Meyer Sound founders John and Helen Meyer and festival founder Claude Nobs. Over the years, Meyer Sound has frequently taken advantage of the stylistic variety at the festival as an opportunity to try out prototypes, debut new products, and get feedback from artists and engineers in many genres. The MJF-212A high-power stage monitor, named in tribute to the festival, made its first appearance, in prototype form, at last year's festival, and has been used this year on major tours, including those by Rod Stewart, Norah Jones, Dave Matthews Band, and Steely Dan. This year, festival artists will again hear themselves through the MJF-212A.
"Meyer Sound's sponsorship of the Montreux Jazz Festival has been very valuable in allowing us to interact closely with musicians and engineers working in all styles and at many levels," says Meyer Sound executive vice president Helen Meyer. "It is important to stay in touch with what performers and engineers want and like, and to find out what they think of our products. But Montreux Jazz is also very special to us in other ways; we've known Claude so long now that the festival feels as much like a family affair as it does a professional opportunity."
The festival's largest venue, Auditorium Stravinski, will sport a sound system that features Meyer Sound's self-powered Milo high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker and 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofer; and Miles Davis Hall will have a system based on the Mica compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker and the 700-HP. More Meyer Sound products will be used in other venues throughout the festival.
(Jim Evans)
