Montreux Jazz Festival makes African debut in Franschhoek

The Fairest Cape is tuning up for a historic crescendo. South Africa will host a world-class gathering of global jazz greats, a weekend where the nation’s musical diversity, choreography and genre-bending creativity converge in the valley of wines and culinary culture: Franschhoek.

Founded in 1967 by Claude Nobs, the Montreux Jazz Festival has become an unmissable event and a source of stories and legendary performances. Now, the legend is stepping onto African soil for the first time in six decades, since the Swiss event was born in the Alps.

Hosted each summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the Montreux Jazz Festival attracts around 250 000 visitors each year and has hosted legends, among them Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Prince, David Bowie and Elton John. 

Organised by the Fondation du Festival de Jazz de Montreux, the festival is renowned for its creative collaborations, legendary performances and global spirit of artistic exchange.

Nedbank has slipped into rhythm as presenting partner, ushering in a pantheon of international performers and home-grown stars for the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek — the first African edition of one of the world’s most revered music institutions. Music lovers will be spoilt for choice as the repertoire stretches across continents, cultures and soundscapes.

Cape Town PR consultant Jeni Fletcher says the programme has expanded boldly, adding a powerhouse line-up of 15 DJs, vinyl selectors and musical tastemakers, “marking a bold statement for its first African edition”.

For audiences travelling the 75km stretch from Cape Town, the journey becomes part of the spectacle: mountains rising like cathedral walls, vineyards rolling into the horizon and the promise of a weekend where jazz becomes pilgrimage, homage and celebration.

Franschhoek is historically important because it is one of South Africa’s earliest European-settled valleys and the heartland of the French Huguenot diaspora, whose arrival in 1688 profoundly shaped the Cape’s agriculture, wine culture and architecture. Its legacy is visible today in the farms, surnames, monuments and Cape Dutch–French cultural blend that define the valley.

The hordes of music aficionados will also stroll and dance through this poignant history.

The concerts are anchored in the joy of jazz, a genre shaped by generations of geniuses, visionaries and lyrical alchemists from Alabama to Atlantis. 

For the first time, Montreux arrives in a town where vines, wines and déjà vu meet celebrity chef Reuben Riffel and Franschhoek’s culinary artisans, all preparing to feed thousands of jazz devotees from Friday to Sunday, 27 to 29 March.

Franschhoek is a microcosm of South Africa’s layered history, with its indigenous roots (Khoisan), colonial-era migration and religious persecution (Huguenots), agricultural innovation (viniculture) and cultural blending that shaped the Cape’s identity.

It stands today as a living archive of how global upheavals, among them religious conflict in Europe, reshaped the cultural and economic landscape of the Cape.

Here, Montreux’s global legacy meets Africa’s creative heartbeat.

The line-up reads like a passport of musical brilliance: Salif Keita, Robert Glasper, Bilal, Ezra Collective and our own home-grown Kesivan Naidoo, Mandisi Dyantyis and Thandiswa Mazwai. 

Expect corporate chiefs, sports stars, politicians and jazz loyalists to descend on the valley for a weekend of sonic and social cohesion communion against the colours of the rainbow.

Fletcher frames it perfectly: “Jazz lovers are in for an exciting curated, premium festival experience blending jazz, soul, electronic, Afro-rooted sounds, food, wine and art — transforming the entire town into a cultural playground. A philosophy of improvisation, diversity and collaboration, true to Montreux’s spirit but now infused with African rhythm, storytelling and community upliftment.”

Mail & Guardian went backstage to speak to some of the festival’s leading performers before they hit The Arches stage.

Speaking from Switzerland, East London-born drummer and composer Kesivan Naidoo says returning home is “quite emotional …meaningful on both a personal and historical level”. 

Montreux, he reflects, has long been a crossroads where cultures meet and new musical possibilities are born.

He recalls sharing stages with legends like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela — artists who carried South African music into the world during turbulent political times from the hallowed halls of the UN in New York. “Montreux was where that dialogue between South Africa and the global jazz community really came alive.”

Now, with the festival finally landing on African soil, he calls it “a full circle moment … acknowledging the profound role African music and South African jazz in particular, has played in shaping the global language of jazz”.

What can we expect from Kesivan’s set? “Energy, immersion and collective improvisation,” he says. 

His ensemble, Kesivan and The Lights, will be joined by the Swiss African Horns, creating a sonic palette that moves between tight composition and open improvisation, “a beautiful tension between precision and freedom”.

Having performed at North Sea Jazz Festival and Montreux, he leads the Kesivan amaBigBand Experience, an orchestral explosion of contemporary African urban jazz, horn-driven power and rhythm-rich grooves.

Vocalists Boohle, Moonchild Sanelly and BONJ will add cinematic layers to the choreography of sound.

The DJs, vinyl selectors and tastemakers are sonic storytellers shaping the festival’s after-hours heartbeat. Their sets will amplify the programme across the Nedbank-sponsored Arches Stage and Jazz Village.

The line-up includes DJ Zinhle, DJ Kent, Kay Faith, That Guy S’bu, Trev The Japanese, Lelowhatsgood, DJ Mighty, DJ Khenzhero, Homie.Lover.Friend, Nelee, Charles Leonard, CandyFlip, Cassiem Latief & Leighton Moody and Europe-based Rosey Gold, spanning jazz, soul, house, hip-hop, rare groove and vinyl-led listening culture.

Festival founder Mark Goedvolk says their inclusion honours Montreux’s legacy of discovery: “South Africa has produced some of the best DJs in the world. Their craft deserves centre stage.”

Music curator Lindsay Rhoda adds: “DJs and vinyl selectors are cultural historians.”

Across the weekend, audiences will drift through a living soundscape, from intimate vinyl sessions to high-energy DJ sets that keep the rhythm alive long after the main concerts end.

Western Cape Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport Ricardo Mackenzie says the festival will “grow local talent, create jobs and showcase our province to the world”.

Don’t be surprised if political dynamo Patricia de Lille, the government of national unity’s minister of tourism, pops in to dance the night away in a province that produced icons such as Abdullah Ibrahim, Jonathan Butler, Ronnie Joyce, Lionel Petersen, Pacific Express and The Flames.

Cape Town remains the postcolonial home of Africa’s biggest street music parade: the Tweede Nuwe Jaar carnival of community bands.

Johannesburg acts like Mango Groove and Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu’s Juluka–Savuka became Cape Town favourites, their township infused pop and Afro-Zulu rock turning them into crossover stars.

At home, the District Six jazz and pop scene powered a vibrant musical ecosystem until the Group Areas Act silenced the multiracial hub in the 1960s. Its musicians fed into Cape Town’s pop, jazz, marabi and mbaqanga bands, echoing the creative energy of Sophiatown.

Blending American jazz influences with local rhythms and Cape coloured musical traditions, the artists shaped the city’s sound. 

Clegg’s fusion of Zulu and Western pop later pushed boundaries further, breaking racial barriers and defying apartheid’s cultural restrictions.

When the final encore dissolves into the Franschhoek night and artists bow to the crowd, the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek would have etched its place in history, marking the Swiss festival’s first appearance on African soil, with DJs ensuring the music never truly stops.

The new South Africa will celebrate its musical repertoire and social history through a marathon of foot tapping, soul lifting, wine-sipping revelry and snacking — a right royal ball in the heartland of a historic wine country.