Claude Nobs (February 4, 1936 – January 10, 2013) was the founder and general manager of the

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 ...

Biography

Nobs was born in

Montreux Montreux (, , ; frp, Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approxi ...

, Switzerland. After apprenticing as a cook, Nobs worked in the Tourism Office of Montreux. He later went to New York, where he met Nesuhi Ertegün, the then-president of

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most ...

. He also met

Roberta Flack Roberta Cleopatra Flack (born February 10, 1937) is a retired American singer. She topped the ''Billboard'' charts with the No. 1 singles " The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", " Killing Me Softly with His Song", " Feel Like Makin' Love", " W ...

and invited her to the ''Rose d’Or de Montreux''. Later,

Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the "Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...

made her first visit to Europe thanks to him. At the age of 31, while he was director of the Tourism Office of Montreux, he organized the first jazz festival featuring artists such as Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Ron McLure and

Jack DeJohnette Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie ...

. This new festival was an immediate success, and gained a reputation far beyond Switzerland. Nobs quickly transformed his festival into an international gathering place for lovers of jazz. In 1971, Deep Purple decided to produce and record their album ''

Machine Head A machine head (also referred to as a tuning machine, tuner, or gear head) is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses and others, and ar ...

'' in Montreux. The group was also scheduled to record at the Montreux Casino, shortly after

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of A ...

performed. During Zappa's concert, a member of the audience fired a flare gun towards the ceiling, resulting in a severe fire that reduced the Casino to ashes. Nobs saved several young people who had hidden in the casino, thinking they would be sheltered from the flames. Nobs, who had served as a volunteer fireman, knew that the casino was not actually a safe place and acted immediately to get them out. This act earned him a mention (in the line "Funky Claude was running in and out pulling kids out the ground") in the song " Smoke on the Water", which is about the incident. Also, on the inner liner of the original album, Nobs' picture was the only one labeled with a name other than those of the band members themselves. In 1973, Nobs became the director of the Swiss branch of Warner, Elektra and Atlantic. On the live Jethro Tull album '' Bursting Out'' (recorded on 28 May 1978 in Bern), one can hear Nobs announcing in

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...

, "Gueten Abig mitenand, und herzlich willkommen in der Festhalle Bern!" ("Good evening everybody, and welcome to the Festhall of Bern"). During the 1990s, Nobs shared the directorship of the festival with

Quincy Jones Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...

, and made

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

an honorary host. The festival continued to diversify and was no longer exclusively devoted to jazz. In 2004, the festival attracted 200,000 visitors. On 25 September 2004, Nobs received the Tourism Prize of Salz & Pfeffer. The

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

of Vaud gave him the "Prix du Rayonnement" for his contributions to music. He has also received an honorary doctorate. In 2005, during the referendum campaign on registered partnership in Switzerland for same-sex couples, Nobs came out publicly to support the new law. At the time, he had been in a relationship with his partner, Thierry Amsallem, since 1987. On 24 December 2012, Nobs had an accident while

Nordic skiing Nordic skiing encompasses the various types of skiing in which the toe of the ski boot is fixed to the binding in a manner that allows the heel to rise off the ski, unlike alpine skiing, where the boot is attached to the ski from toe to heel. Re ...

in Switzerland and fell into a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

. He died on 10 January 2013 at age 76.

References

External links

Montreux Jazz Festival

Claude Nobs Foundation

Live at Montreux on YouTube

Claude Nobs Revealed on CNN.com International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nobs, Claudel 1936 births 2013 deaths Skiing deaths Swiss businesspeople Festival directors People from Montreux Deep Purple Accidental deaths in Switzerland LGBT people from Switzerland