The love affair between jazz and the French Riviera is now more than seven decades in the making. It began after World War Two, when Sidney Bechet and Duke Ellington fell in love with the region. From then on, there was a sense that jazz floated in the air each summer, with African-American icons arriving to play intimate shows to crowds that often gave them more reverence and respect than they received back home. In fact, jazz festivals are said to have been invented in the region, with lineups gathering the world’s most exciting acts from near and far.
1958 was a marquee year, with the Festival de Cannes playing host to an all-star group of truly iconic artists: Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge … these musicians mingled, watched each other’s shows and took in the scenery. What makes these compilations, directed by Jean-Christophe Averty, so special, is that we get to see the music as well as taste the energy through shots of the audience, of musical giants talking and laughing; there is even an interview with Jean Cocteau who stands in front of the harbour and explains: “the crime of our epoch is the lack of enthusiasm and jazz provokes enthusiasm everywhere it goes. It is poetry, considerable poetry … for that, if nothing else, we should respect it and adore it.”
