“The most irrational festival” is how Montreux Jazz Festival director Mathieu Jaton describes his work – a place where artistic vision trumps financial logic, where a vinyl listening room operates until dawn not because it generates revenue, but because it deepens the musical experience.

Paradoxically, this uncalculated approach pleases crowds far more than any algorithm ever could.

In an era when Australian music festivals increasingly struggle with sustainability and creating distinctive programming, Montreux’s demonstrates what might be possible even here.

Grace Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival 2025. Photo © MJF / Lionel Flusin

A quick search for ‘Montreux’ in your streaming service will reveal how often this festival brings out lifetime-best performances from its artists, but that is no guarantee of brilliance. Witness Bloc Party, whose faltering performance on the festival’s prestigious outdoor Lake Stage – with the Swiss Alps reflected in Lake Geneva as their backdrop – was a pale shadow of their show in Sydney’s grimy Hordern Pavilion last Friday.

Likewise, The Black Keys were eclipsed on that same Lake Stage by their opening band Hermanos Gutiérrez, whose cosmic desert-inflected guitars proved perfectly matched to the setting, timing Low Sun to...