Festival de Big Bands de Pertuis

The Festival de Big Bands de Pertuis: twenty-five years of big format jazz

Since its first edition in 1999, the Festival de Big Bands de Pertuis has built a solid reputation among jazz festivals in Provence. Its specialty? The big band — these large jazz ensembles that bring together 15 to 20 musicians, sometimes more, in a collective sound explosion that is one of the most spectacular and jubilant expressions of jazz music. Pertuis, the largest town in southern Vaucluse with its 20,000 inhabitants, has become a national reference in this musical genre over the years.

The 2025 edition celebrated the 27th edition with an attendance of 4,200 people over five evenings — a great popular success that confirms the loyalty of the Pertuis and regional public to this unique event in the Provençal festival landscape.

Big Bands: Jazz in Big Format

The big band was born in the late 1920s in the United States, in the cabarets of Harlem and the dance halls of Chicago. These large ensembles popularized jazz to a wide audience through the swing of the 1930s and 1940s. Legendary names — Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman — have marked the history of 20th-century music. The big band has never stopped evolving: from traditional jazz to jazz fusion, from academic arrangements to the freest improvisations, it remains a living, creative, and spectacular musical form.

In Pertuis, the festival hosts big bands that represent the full diversity of this genre: traditional swing orchestras, blues and funk ensembles, contemporary jazz big bands, Latin salsa orchestras, New Orleans ensembles with their festive brass and infectious joie de vivre. This variety is at the heart of the festival's philosophy, which aims to show that big format jazz can be as nostalgic and elegant as it is wild and danceable.

Five Evenings, Ten Concerts, A Unique Atmosphere

The format of the Festival de Big Bands de Pertuis is well-established: five evenings spread over a week in early August, with two concerts each evening, for a total of about ten ensembles. Four evenings are free — a rare generosity that testifies to the organizers' desire to make the festival an event accessible to all budgets. Only the evenings with the most anticipated headliners are ticketed.

The concerts are held outdoors in the setting of the town of Pertuis — generally in the public spaces of the town center — under the starry sky of Provençal August nights. The atmosphere is festive and relaxed, often family-friendly, with an audience that oscillates between regulars who return each year and newcomers curious to discover the festival.

The 2025 Program: Swing, Boogie, and West Side Story

The 27th edition in 2025 offered a particularly rich program. Among the highlights:

• The Barcelona Big Blues Band with saxophonist-singer Drew Davies and pianist Ladyva, a boogie-woogie specialist — two sets for the price of one, at the crossroads of Chicago blues and 1940s virtuosity
• The Amazing Keystone Big Band with a new adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, to commemorate the composer's centenary, with exceptional singers and actors integrated into the ensemble
• Other ensembles from all over Europe, covering the full spectrum of big format jazz

This ability to program ambitious and original musical projects — an adaptation of West Side Story, a meeting between boogie-woogie and big band jazz — distinguishes the Pertuis Festival from events that are content to play standards. The artistic team seeks to surprise an audience it considers demanding and curious.

Pertuis, Gateway to the Luberon and Pays d'Aigues

Pertuis is a town of character, the gateway to the Pays d'Aigues and the Luberon hills. With 20,000 inhabitants, it is the largest municipality in southern Vaucluse, ideally located between Aix-en-Provence (25 km) and the Durance river. Its historic center, dominated by the Saint-Nicolas Tower (14th century), houses the markets, cafes, and typical streets of inland Provence.

The town is an ideal starting point for exploring the southern Luberon — La Tour d'Aigues and its Renaissance castle, the vineyards of the Luberon appellation, the perched village of Ansouis — and Sainte-Victoire, the emblematic mountain celebrated by Cézanne, visible on clear days from the heights of Pertuis. The festival in early August fits into a complete Provençal holiday program.