Juan-les-Pins is the town which welcomed the first European Jazz Festival in 1960, and this was no coincidence. Nearly 42 years earlier, as soon as the phenomenon began, jazz arrived here as if by miracle. This is where the worldwide myth of the “Jazz Age” and Enfants du Jazz came into being.

Here is the tale of this “Prehistory”.

It all began with a real fairytale in 1923, the year when Louis Armstrong recorded his first 78 rpm records, the first jazz masterpieces, with King Oliver in Chicago. That year, a young American couple, good-looking and immensely rich, set up home on the cape of Antibes where they had a beautiful villa built, baptised ‘America’ as is only right and proper. And so began the passionate story which made Antibes a major melting pot of Afro-American music, and also of modern art and culture.

Gerald Murphy was born in Boston in 1888. His father made his fortune in New York by importing all kinds of precious objects emblematic of Europe that could seduce the local middle class. Having broken away from this commercial environment, Gerald preferred to devote his time to his two passions: music and painting. In Paris, he became close friends with Igor Stravinsky, and undertook to improve Igor’s knowledge of his own favourite musical style, that of the Black Americans. Up until then, Stravinsky, whose works were already inspired by early forms of jazz, had only experienced it through sheet music or transcriptions. Gerald Murphy arrived just at the right moment to help him, as well as his other friend Cocteau, discover jazz in a more direct way by sharing his record library with them. For in his house on the Cap d’Antibes he had assembled the first big collection of the best 78s of blues, ragtime, spiritual Negro and jazz.

Incredible but true: in 1928, in the harbour of Antibes, Gerald Murphy launches his yacht and during a sumptous celebration baptises it ‘Weather Bird’, after the title (Weather Bird Rag) of the masterpiece which Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines had only just recorded together… and which remains, seventy years later, one of the pinnacles of jazz.

At this period, songs and the music-hall were generating the majority of famous newcomers to Juan-les-Pins: as soon as it opened, the casino became the main annexe of the big Parisian halls; Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguett came to celebrate their romance. Mad about Juan, Mistinguett even opened her own cabaret with its risqué reputation, La Cage à Poules. In 1929, in the heart of the pine grove, Mayol inaugurated the open air Théâtre de Verdure, the ancestor of the Jazz à Juan stage. Almost every musical star could be seen passing through (and often staying in) Juan.

During its second season, Juan’s new casino welcomed a troupe of charleston dancers one evening. Captivated by the atmosphere of this crazy night, the Murphys decided to stay longer and organised a private party. This evening was to inspire Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, ‘Tender Is the Night’, and the Murphys’ lifestyle in Antibes would serve as a model for his other masterpiece, ‘Les Enfants du Jazz’.

In 1928, Gerald left Antibes for Hollywood, where the film maker King Vidor asked him to be his adviser for the shooting of Hallelujah, the first film played entirely by black actors and dedicated to their culture. It’s a unique testimony, since it shows the first audio images of Afro-American music.

But jazz in Juan, at this period, remained carefree. As early as 1927, the Auberge du Pin Doré welcomed the Blue Lagoon Orchestra, and the following year, the inauguration of the Pré-Catelan took place to the sounds of Danny’s Jazz Band. In 1932, Juan celebrated the 250^th anniverary of champagne and for this tribute to Dom Pérignon, the new club Maxim’s accommodated no less than three orchestras: jazz, tango and rumba. For the musicologists, this was a good indication as to which musical styles ‘worked’ and who were in favour with the couple Maurice Chevalier/Mistinguett.

While a very young Claude Bolling was learning to walk on the beach of Juan-les-Pins, jazz-bands performed one after another at the Casino which welcomed, in 1935, Fred Ermelin’s orchestra with piano virtuoso Herman Chittison. That same year, and for the first time, Juan welcomed one of the jazz geniuses, Benny Carter, accompanied by the first great French saxophonist Alix Combelle. The following year, at the Casino, the big band Eddy Foy was a sensational hit, while Radio-Méditerranée set up its transmitter on the Saint-Jean plateau in Antibes. From then on, in Juan-les-Pins, jazz was to be a permanent part of the landscape.

Today Jazz in Juan celebrates its 46^th anniversary. It has made a name for itself as one of those legendary places where jazz sees its memory developed and, above all, its eternal renewal established through young and talented newcomers.