René Langel, cofounder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, died on Tuesday in Lausanne. The former jazz journalist would have turned 97 next month, his family said.
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Born in Neuchâtel, Langel worked for various media in French-speaking Switzerland, in particular for the Tribune de Lausanne and the Vevey-Riviera, where he was editor-in-chief. When he was very young, he contributed to a jazz magazine, Hot Revue.
A saxophonist, Langel had a passion for jazz and, together with Claude Nobs and Géo Voumard, he founded the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967. Nobs died following a skiing accident in 2013. Voumard died in 2008.
In 2001 Langel published Le jazz orphelin de l’Afrique (jazz, orphan of Africa), a look at the historical roots of jazz. In 2004 he wrote a biography of pioneering Swiss environmentalist Franz Weber.
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