The Montreux Years: ROBERTA FLACK

LONDON Thursday April 30th 2026 – BMG and The Montreux Jazz Festival announce the return of their prestigious live collection series, with a brand new release ‘Roberta Flack: The Montreux Years’. The album, out June 26th in multiple-format configurations including 2LP heavyweight vinyl, CD, download and on all major streaming services, features a sublime collection of Roberta Flack’s Montreux Jazz Festival performances spanning four decades, from her debut appearance in 1971 through to her last in 2008. Fully restored and superbly mastered for the first time by Tony Cousins at London’s Metropolis Studios, the unique recordings come with exclusive liner notes by her long-term manager Suzanne Koga, and rare and unseen photography. Ahead of the album’s release, the track “I’d Like To Be Baby To You” from Roberta Flacks’ 1990 Montreux Jazz Festival concert is available to stream now.

One of the most distinctive and powerful voices in contemporary music, Roberta Flack rose to global prominence in the early 1970s with recordings that shaped her legacy, including the timeless “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and the era-defining “Killing Me Softly With His Song”. A classically trained pianist and vocalist, she developed an artistry that was both technically refined and emotionally resonant, moving effortlessly between soul, jazz, pop and folk.

“The Montreux Years” embodies the spirit of the Montreux Jazz Festival and the legacy of Claude Nobs, the Festival’s founder. Until his passing in January 2013, he personally invited and welcomed artists to Montreux and built his collection of Festival recordings (Montreux Sounds)—more than 4,000 live recordings made between 1967 and 2012, with those up to 1986 produced in collaboration with RTS – Radio Télévision Suisse. Inscribed in 2013 on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register under the title “The Montreux Jazz Festival – Claude Nobs’ Legacy,” the Collection is preserved by the Claude Nobs Foundation, in partnership with the EPFL Center for Cultural Heritage and Innovation.

Claude Nobs’ Legacy

In Montreux, taking the stage means becoming part of history. From 1967 onwards, Claude Nobs personally invited the artists — and he didn’t stop there: he recorded, archived and carefully preserved their performances with unwavering passion and attention to detail. This visionary approach gave rise to the Montreux Jazz Festival’s Claude Nobs Collection (1967–2012), produced by Montreux Sounds. In 2013, the archive was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register overseen by the Claude Nobs Foundation, and has been preserved and further developed with EPFL since 2007.