Yoann Lemoine

Yoann Lemoine (born 16 March 1983) is a Frenchmusic video director, graphic designer and singer-songwriter. His most notable works include his music video direction for Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream", Taylor Swift's single "Back to December", Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die" and Mystery Jets' "Dreaming of Another World".

Lemoine is also a neofolk musician, going by the stage name Woodkid. On March 28, 2011, Woodkid released his first EP Iron EP, and on March 18, 2013, he released his first album titled The Golden Age, which is an autobiographical record.

Life and career

Yoann Lemoine was born in Lyon to a mother of Polish Jewish origin. He studied illustration and animation at the Emile Cohl School, where he completed his diploma with honors. He then left for the UK to follow a silk screen printing process course at Swindon College. In 2004 Yoann moved to Paris. After a brief experience at H5, he joined Luc Besson's crew and worked on the project Arthur and the Invisibles for a year. In 2006 Yoann directed a series of roughs for Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette.

Montreux Jazz Festival

The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second largest annual jazz festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival.

History

The Montreux Jazz Festival was founded in 1967 by Claude Nobs, Géo Voumard and René Langel with considerable help from Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün of Atlantic Records. The festival was first held at Montreux Casino. It lasted for three days and featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The highlights of this era were Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, The Fourth Way, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Originally a pure jazz festival, it opened up in the 1970s and today presents artists of nearly every imaginable music style. Jazz remains an important part of the festival. Today's festival lasts about two weeks and attracts an audience of more than 200,000 people.

List of jazz festivals

This is an incomplete list of notable jazz music festivals, broken down geographically. The festivals mentioned here should have at least some international recognition. This list generally excludes multi-genre festivals with only a partial focus on jazz, though such fusion festivals may be listed under individual subtopics of Jazz festivals by country.

Jazz has appeared in various festivals since the turn of the century, after the genre originated in African American communities during the late 19th and early 20th century. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop and cool jazz emerged in the 1940s, and the 1950s saw free jazz, hard bop, and modal jazz. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electronic instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock, with large festivals exhibiting the sounds in response. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called "smooth jazz" became successful, and other jazz styles include Afro-Cuban jazz and various fusion genres.

Son Lux

Ryan Lott, known by his stage name Son Lux, is an American musician who was born in Denver, Colorado, United States, and is based in New York. He has released four albums, two EPs and a handful of singles, his most recent album Bones appeared in June 2015. He is also a member of Sisyphus and has featured on one album and an EP with this trio. Additionally Lott has scored the soundtracks a number of films, most notably Paper Towns (2015) and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013). In late 2014 he signed with Glassnote Records after previously being with Joyful Noise Recordings.

History

Lott worked full-time in New York City from 2007 until 2012 composing music for commercials. While he mainly concentrates now on his music career, he still continues to compose commercial music for various projects.

Son Lux released his debut album, At War with Walls & Mazes, on Anticon in 2008. Following this release, NPR named Son Lux "Best New Artist" on their program All Songs Considered.

His second album, We Are Rising, was released on Anticon in 2011. It was recorded in 28 days for the RPM Challenge and was described by Consequence of Sound as "the dark, operatic middle ground between Owen Pallett and In Rainbows-era Radiohead or Wild Beasts' fantastic, operatic heights." He is a member of Sisyphus along with Serengeti and Sufjan Stevens. The trio released their debut EP, Beak & Claw, on Anticon in 2012. Son Lux signed with Joyful Noise Recordings in May 2013, the same month that his "haunting rendition" of Black Water was featured in JNR's flexi-series. Simultaneous with the announcement that he would be joining Joyful Noise, he released the TEAR, a conceptual 7" featuring one new song in two distinct parts. The album Lanterns was released on October 29, 2013. The album includes vocals from then label-mate Cat Martino of Stranger Cat. The lead single "Lost It To Trying" was immediately named one of Pitchfork's Best New Tracks.

Live at Montreux

Live at Montreux is the name of live concert releases, on CD and/or DVD, by various musicians, usually referring to recordings at the Montreux Jazz Festival: