Lauryn Hill to Return to the Stage at Montreux Jazz Festival

Somehow Rock Daily missed this earlier today when we mentioned the headliners for Europe's prestigious Montreux Jazz festival: Lauryn Hill is one of the 1,000 artists booked for the event, which is in its 43rd year. The Swiss fest runs from July 3-18th. Per Reuters, Hill will play the Stravinski Auditorium on July 11th after a tribute to Nina Simone, which features Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo.

Hill's most recent public appearance came in October 2008, when a photographer caught her hanging out with Martha Stewart at a book signing in her native New Jersey. Prior to that, she last took the stage in August 2007, when she performed a two-hour-plus set in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood. The free concert drew a giant crowd, and included a brief set of Bob Marley songs, a run through of Fugees hits and a cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." That show came just weeks after Hill's former Fugee bandmates, Wyclef Jean and Pras, had complained to the press that she was stopping the group from reuniting (they last took the stage together in February 2006). There's been little concrete information about Hill's musical plans. She has reportedly been working on a solo album since 2004.

Last August to mark the 10th anniversary of Hill's blockbuster The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Rolling Stone spoke to many of those responsible for making the LP for an exclusive oral history.

Related Stories:

• Inside "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"
• Lauryn Hill Shocks Fans With Two-Hour-Plus Career-Spanning Brooklyn Concert
• The Mystery of Lauryn Hill

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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