Montreal International Jazz Festival

Rouè-Doudou Boicel founded the Rising Sun Festijazz, Montreal's first blues & jazz festival in 1978. There were other previous jazz festivals in Montreal, including the three-day Jazz de Chez Nous festival in 1979, created by Montreal bassist Charlie Biddle.

The Montreal Jazz Festival (later: Montreal International Jazz Festival) was conceived by Alain Simard, who had spent much of the 1970s working with Productions Kosmos bringing artists such as Chuck Berry, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and others to Montreal to perform. In 1977, Simard teamed up with André Ménard and Denyse McCann to form an agency named Spectra Scène (now known as L'Équipe Spectra), with the idea of creating a summer festival in Montreal that would bring a number of artists together at the same time.

They planned their first festival for the summer of 1979. Unable to secure sufficient funding, their plans were scuttled, but they still were able to produce two nights of shows at Théâtre-St-Denis featuring Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny.

Starting on May 10, 1980, a Montreal Jazz Festival was staged, with funding from Alain de Grosbois of CBC Stereo and Radio-Québec. With Gary Burton, Ray Charles, Chick Corea, and Vic Vogel on the bill, and an attendance of 12,000, the event was deemed a success and has continued to grow since then.

In 2000, the Festival teamed up with Distribution Select to release its 4-CD box set called Over 20 years of music – Plus de 20 ans de musique. The box includes a 13-page booklet with the artists' biographies and complete liner notes about the music.

In 1999, a group of Montreal jazz musicians disenchanted with the Montreal International Jazz Festival's lack of support for and showcasing of Montreal jazz musicians created an alternative festival called L'OFF Festival de Jazz de Montreal. The alternative festival continues as an annual, week-long jazz festival in Montreal, programmed largely by musicians.

In 2020, for the first time in its 40-year history, the International Montreal Jazz Festival was cancelled, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in what would have been its 41st edition. In 2021, because of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the 41st edition was postponed until autumn, reduced to 5 days, and limited to outdoor performances, while indoor shows were held in 2022.