Diana Ross dazzles while British stars Jade and Raye bring youthful energy to Montreux Jazz Festival – UK Times

There are some significant debuts at the Montreux Jazz Festival this year. The first is Jade, the former Little Mix star turned solo artist who has fast-emerged as one of the UK’s most exciting prospects. With hit singles such as “Angel of My Dreams” and “IT Girl”, she has spun some of her darkest experiences in the industry as a member of the most successful girl group since The Spice Girls into sharp, witty and frequently surprising pop songs.

Speaking ahead of her performance on the Lake Stage, she admits to feeling somewhat intimidated by Montreux’s music pedigree. This is, after all, a festival that has played host to some of the greatest artists who ever lived: Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Marvin Gaye, Leonard Cohen, Prince…

However, Jade has been invited for a reason. If Montreux was missing one thing, it was the youthful, high-octane alt-pop that the singer brought the house down with at Mighty Hoopla last month. Slightly older and more subdued, this is certainly a different crowd from the London set at that festival, but within 10 minutes of her dramatic entrance, which sees the singer rise onto a staircase as the sun sets over Lake Geneva, she has the audience onside. It helps that she’s such an endearing personality, charming the Swiss with her South Shields pronunciation of “Montreux” and, later, a tribute to Diana Ross ahead of a dazzling rendition of her funk and disco-influenced “Fantasy”.

She’s followed on Tuesday night by fellow Brit Raye, whose own debut in 2024 is already the stuff of Montreux legend. Mathieu Jaton, the festival’s beaming CEO, introduces her himself, a testament to how the Mercury Prize winner’s unique melding of soul, jazz, pop and blues fits so perfectly with the event’s heritage. With her superb band, the 27-year-old demonstrates a technical mastery beyond her years, along with a delightfully nerdy love for explaining chord progressions and key changes to the audience. There are tears (from both Raye and her audience) during the performance of “Ice Cream Man”, a heart-rending account of sexual assault, and again during a hair-raising cover of the jazz standard “Cry Me a River” – “Not the Justin Timberlake one,” she assures us.

Elsewhere, across the first of its two weeks, Montreux Jazz Festival once again shows how, despite its name, it is a festival that prides itself in curating the crème de la crème across all genres. Hence why the fearless R&B and garage sounds of Jorja Smith on the Casino Stage fall on the same day that indie pop band London Grammar hypnotise us with a career-best performance of songs such as “Strong” and “Wasting My Young Years”. The event’s free stages now include the Spotlight Stage, where Liverpool’s Luvcat struts and shimmies to visually rich, ornate pop influenced by Frank Sinatra and Nick Cave.

Celeste’s return to the festival finds her on the Lake Stage on Thursday, eyes circled with black paint and a crown of crow feathers atop her head. She performs with a pained, hollow-eyed expression – her smoky, soaring cry heard on songs such as “Strange”, the lead single from her 2019 debut Not Your Muse, and the James Bond-esque “This is Who I Am”. You wonder whether Celeste is genuinely miserable or simply channelling Billie Holiday – the latter is confirmed when she grins suddenly, more than happy to sign the vinyl records waved at her by fans in the front row.

Lionel Richie’s headline performance is perhaps the most baffling of the week, with tacky visuals that remind us, unfortunately, of an In Memoriam segment, and some alarming hip thrusts. Still, his audience laps it up, whether during an out-of-step singalong to “Stuck on You” or the schmaltz of “Three Times a Lady”.

However, it’s Diana Ross who reigns over Montreux’s first week, sashaying onto the Lake Stage looking like a jewel-encrusted Aperol spritz in a sequinned orange bodice and ginormous feather cloak. She has so many hits that some of them, such as “Love Hangover”, have to be condensed. Others, like a euphoric Gloria Gaynor cover “I Will Survive”, are given space to breathe with spectacular solos from her backing band. Ross has no fewer than five costume changes, from a purple and pink explosion of taffeta to a slinky silver number.

Ross’s gratitude for her staggering career is plain to see as she wipes away tears, overcome by emotion at the rapturous reception to her 1980 Motown classic “Upside Down”. Blowing kisses, she is helped offstage by her daughter Rhonda – a talented singer in her own right – leaving her audience to wander out onto the sun-warmed streets of Switzerland, dazed and elated.