Montreux Casino

Geschichte

Montreux Casino is a casino located in Montreux, Switzerland, on the shoreline of Lake Geneva. It has served as the venue for the Montreux Jazz Festival and was rebuilt following a 1971 fire memorialized in the Deep Purple song "Smoke on the Water". It is a property of Groupe Lucien Barrière.HistoryMontreux Casino was built in 1881 and had modifications made to it in 1903. Throughout the twentieth century, the site played host to many great symphony orchestras and well-known conductors. By the late 1960s, jazz, blues and rock artists began to perform there.In 1967 the Casino became the venue for the Montreux Jazz Festival, which was the brainchild of music promoter Claude Nobs. The festival was held there annually and lasted for three days. The highlights of this era were Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald. Originally featuring almost exclusively jazz artists, in the 1970s the festival began broadening its scope, including blues, soul, and rock artists. Some notable rock acts which performed at Montreux Casino in these years include Led Zeppelin (although they never performed at the festival itself), Pink Floyd and Deep Purple.