Qwest TV is a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service featuring jazz and other eclectic music, including classical, blues, and soul.
Qwest TV was created in 2017 by Quincy Jones and Reza Ackbaraly.
Reza Ackbaraly (member of the Charles Cros Academy, musical programmer of the Jazz à Vienne festival in France, La Petite Halle de la Villette concert hall in Paris, and (previously) Mezzo TV), met Quincy Jones in 2014. It was during this meeting that plans for Qwest TV were laid.[1]
Qwest TV was officially introduced at the 51st Montreux Jazz Festival in July 2017.[2]
In September 2017, a pre-subscription campaign was launched at a tribute concert for Jones at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.[3]
The pre-subscription campaign was conducted via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.[4][5]
In December 2017, a beta version of Qwest TV was officially launched.[6]
In 2020, Qwest had three channels: Qwest TV Jazz & Beyond for blues, soul, and funk music, Qwest TV Mix, and Qwest TV Classical.[7][8][9][10]
In the 1980s, Quincy Jones created his own record label, Qwest Records, before co-founding Qwest Broadcasting, a media broadcasting company in the United States.
The Qwest TV catalog features documentaries, concerts, archives, and exclusive content relating to "jazz and beyond", such as:
Each jazz video is accompanied by liner notes written by a journalist specializing in that genre.[12]
