B.B.King

Featuring highlights from the 1999 Montreux Jazz Festival. Includes the complete 1999 Festival Workshop.
Starring: B.B. King, George Duke, Beverley Knight, Charles Lloyd, Bette Midler, Peter Buck.

The Montreux Jazz Festival, the subject of the inspirational 1999 documentary The Montreux Dream, first took place in 1967. Since then, it has become a world-famous event, bringing together the finest musicians and singers in an annual celebration which transcends stuffy musical barriers.

The force behind Montreux is its founder Claude Nobs and the documentary is as much a tribute to his generous passion for music (jazz and blues in particular) as it is to the artists past and present who have taken part over the years. Archive footage of Aretha Franklin at the piano (and at her vocal peak), blues singer and guitarist BB King, Miles Davis, the obviously thrilled British soul singer Beverley Knight and REM, among many others, contribute to a riveting and moving story. Director Christopher Swann skilfully uses performance clips to link interviews with many of these stars and anecdotes from Nobs as he reveals what an important historical archive the Festival has generated, and how he has managed to persuade so many stars to give their services for often relatively modest fees. Exhilarating stuff.