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

Yvan Hausmann · Yvan Hausmann on:en - image: en:Image:Claude Nobs2.jpg · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1936. · Montreux.
- Died
- 2013. · Lausanne.
- Nationality
- Switzerland.
- Occupation
- cook, executive producer, composer, instrumentalist, editor and music executive.
- Education
- École hôtelière de Lausanne.
- Honours
- Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, honorary doctor of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Swiss Music Awards.
- Languages
- French.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Claude Nobs (February 4, 1936 – January 10, 2013) was the founder and general manager of the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Claude Nobs. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
wikipedia incomplete · checked 25 September 2026
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
gnd · 1227906994 · wikidata · Q116313 · wikipedia · Claude Nobs
In this article
Biography
Biography
Claude Nobs studied at École hôtelière de Lausanne. The recorded working language is French. Distinctions recorded are Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, honorary doctor of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Swiss Music Awards.
Nobs was born in Montreux, 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. He also met Roberta Flack and invited her to the Rose d’Or de Montreux. Later, Aretha Franklin 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 organised the first jazz festival featuring artists such as Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Ron McLure and Jack DeJohnette. 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 in Montreux. The group was also scheduled to record at the Montreux Casino, shortly after Frank Zappa 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 earned him a mention in the song "Smoke on the Water" (the line "Funky Claude was running in and out pulling kids out the ground"). Also, on the inner liner of the original album, Nobs' picture was the only one labeled with a name other than the band members. In 1973, Nobs became the director of the Swiss branch of Warner, Elektra and Atlantic. At the beginning of the live Jethro Tull album Bursting Out (recorded in 1978 in Bern), one can hear Nobs announcing in Swiss German with French accent, "Gueten Abig mitenand, und herzliche Willkommen in Festhalle Bern!" ("Good evening everybody, and welcome to the Festhalle of Bern"), followed by greetings in Italian, French and English. During the 1990s, Nobs shared the directorship of the festival with Quincy Jones, and made Miles Davis an honorary host. The festival continued to diversify and was no longer exclusively devoted to jazz. In 2004, the festival attracted 200,000 visitors. In September 2004, Nobs received the Tourism Prize of Salz & Pfeffer. The canton 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 cross-country skiing in Switzerland and fell into a coma. He died on 10 January 2013 at age 76.

Claude Nobs, director of Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland. Claude Nobs introduces the Bill Evans Trio at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 12, 1978.
Brian McMillen

GLAM on Tour Montreux 2022
Adoscam
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
2013
Claude Nobs died in 2013 at Lausanne.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Montreux.
Birth place
Lausanne.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Claude Nobs”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q116313: Claude Nobs
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
authority file
- Gemeinsame Normdatei 1227906994, Claude Nobs Foundation.
Unverified · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority file
Gemeinsame Normdatei 1227906994, Claude Nobs Foundation.Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
42,108 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Claude LéveilléePerson
- Claude Loyola AllgénPerson
- Claude MakiPerson
- Claude Marc BourgetPerson
- Claude NollierPerson
- Claude ParisPerson
- Claude PascalPerson
- Claude PerraudinPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Claude Nobs?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.