Alfa Jazz Fest, Lviv, Ukraine
24-27 June
Highlight Pat Metheny Quartet
Lviv is an architectural treasure, close to the Polish border, and many of its Habsburg, art nouveau and baroque buildings survived 20th-century wars relatively unscathed. This festival, established in 2011, has three stages hosting artists from all over Europe, as well as US stars such as Pat Metheny, Esperanza Spalding, Dianne Reeves and Branford Marsalis, who are joined by Cuban trumpet virtuoso Arturo Sandoval. Among the free highlights away from the main Eddie Rosner stage will be UK group Sons of Kemet and master percussionist Trilok Gurtu performing in the open air on beautiful Rynok Square.
Accommodation options Among the best-located B&Bs in the city is the 38-room Modern Art Hotel, doubles from £28
• Eddie Rosner stage gigs from £12, alfajazzfest.com
Jazz a Vienne, France
28 June-15 July
Highlight Diana Krall
The French took American jazz to their hearts in the 1920s, adding their own flavours in the form of jazz manouche. In the summer the genre is still part of the street scene in towns and villages across the nation. One of the most dramatic settings for outdoor jazz is at ancient Vienne, south of Lyon on the Rhône, where a Roman amphitheatre hosts the main acts, which this year include Imelda May, Esperanza Spalding, Earth Wind and Fire, Chic, Erik Truffaz, a tribute to Django Reinhardt, Diana Krall, Lisa Simone and Brad Mehldau. But beyond the amphitheatre are smaller venues such as the Garden of Cybele, another Roman relic, offering music throughout the day and workshops for aspiring musicians.
Accommodation options Check out vienne-tourisme.com for B&Bs and hostels. Vienne’s proximity to Lyon means stays in the southern part of that city can be only 25 minutes away by car or bus – if you find that Vienne itself is booked out.
• Tickets for amphitheatre gigs from €36 (under 12s free, €22 12-16s), seven-night ticket €180 and three nights from about €80, jazzavienne.com
A Love Supreme, Sussex
1-3 July
Highlight Esperanza Spalding
While Rossini’s comic masterpiece Il barbiere di Siviglia is wowing punters at Glyndebourne, the audience a mile down the road at Glynde Place will be slaves to an altogether different kind of rhythm. In addition to Grace Jones, the lineup this year puts several charismatic female jazz/soul vocalists to the fore: there is south London’s Lianne La Havas, Dutch singer Caro Emerald, bluesy Melody Gardot, and hitmaker Kelis. The genre-bending compass swings back to full-on jazz with guitarist John Scofield (in an all-star trio with pianist Brad Mehldau and drummer Mark Giuliani), bass legend Stanley Clarke, and Kamasi Washington – a Kendrick Lamar sideman. Oh yes, and a certain Burt Bacharach will be segueing his strings of hits too.
Accommodation options In its third year, A Love Supreme offers a Lattitude-ish array of camping options including Hobbit Huts, bell tents and podpads (from £26.50pp pn in addition to weekend camping price)
• Day ticket £59.40, weekend £159.50 including camping, lovesupremefestival.com
Montreux jazz festival, Switzerland
1-16 July
Highlight Charles Lloyd New Quartet
The daddy of European jazz festivals – second in size globally only to Montreal’s enormous annual jamboree – has, over its 49 years, become a general modern music event. It has featured Led Zeppelin, New Order and Eric Clapton in its time, but jazz remains at its core with workshops, jazz cruises on Lake Geneva, jazz trains, competitions for young musicians, late-night jams, club stages, outdoor stages, large auditoriums, heaps of DJs and chilled out bars. Muse are the big rock act set for this year (already sold out) but for jazz lovers the lineup includes Lisa Simone, Mike Stern, Dweezil Zappa, Al Jarreau, Quincy Jones and Biréli Lagrène. Being in Switzerland it scrubs up well and there’s a big emphasis on sustainability with a vast cleanliness and recycling effort.
Accommodation options It’s a bit of a squeeze with up to 200,000 visitors tagged on to the 28,000 residents, although the town has a large hotel capacity. A good camping option is Les Horizons Blues at the lake’s edge, a couple of miles from the centre of town (two man tent from €30pn)
• Individual tickets and event packages are available at montreuxjazzfestival.com
Umbria jazz festival, Perugia, Italy
8-17 July
Highlight Branford Marsalis/Kurt Elling
Eclectic contemporary sounds will waft through gorgeous Perugia’s piazzas, cobbled alleys and arched stairways this summer, as they have most years since 1973, leaving jazz lovers giddy. There’s music around every medieval corner but on the main stage at the outdoor Arean Santa Giuliana this year are guitarist John Scofield, veteran bluesman Buddy Guy, bassist Marcus Miller and vocalist/pianist Diana Krall. Also appearing is Chick Corea and organist Cory Henry and his Apostles band. They will be joined by two acts who aren’t strictly speaking jazz: George Clinton’s Funkadelic (remember the joyous set at last year’s Glastonbury?) and Mika, the singer of hit single Grace Kelly, who’s a judge on the Italian X-Factor.
Accommodation options If booking late, one possibility just outside Perugia and offering B&B and camping is the rustic Perugia Farmhouse (doubles from €58, camping from €16pp) – which has a pool.
• Tickets for the headline acts from €23, umbriajazz.com
North Sea jazz festival, Rotterdam
8-10 July
Highlight Cécile McLorin Salvant
Every summer since 1976 (when Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie headlined) British jazz fans have streamed over to the Netherlands to help make up the 60,000-70,000-strong audience at this big-time yet intimate festival spread over 13 stages on four floors within the giant Ahoy complex. This year’s programme features many performers appearing at the other festivals on this list, with Earth Wind and Fire’s pyrotechnic funk to the fore once again. Simply Red and Level 42 add to the veteran groove/pop quotient but jazz purists will be mollified by legendary sax players Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd, scorching drummer Antonio Sanchez (who composed and performed the score for the movie Birdman), the unique Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf and wonderful young singer Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Accommodation options Plentiful and varied in the Hague/Rotterdam urban area but if travelling on a tight budget Hostel De Mafkees is offering beds in dorms for €12.50 B&B (bring your own sleeping bag or rent duvet €5), even on the Saturday night of the festival. It’s about 25 minutes, door-to-door by tube train to Ahoy.
• Three-day tickets from €200, day tickets from €85, northseajazz.com
Jazz de Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
12-16 July
Highlight Joshua Redman Quartet
This Basque city enjoys something of a love-in with the jazz world: in 2006 a life-size statue of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who had written a suite dedicated to the city, was put up in Parque de la Florida, one of Vitoria’s many attractive green spaces. This year, guitarist Pat Metheny headlines with former Miles Davis bassist Ron Carter (€40), two true legends playing live in a duo. But the impressive lineup also features the Joshua Redman Quartet, splitting the bill with Tom Harrell (€30 = bargain), and what promises to be another truly memorable duo from Kenny Barron and Dave Holland. There’s also jazz on the street twice a day and midnight sessions at the Hotel Canciller Ayala. Vitoria-Gasteiz itself is sometimes overlooked in favour of nearby Bilbao, Pamplona and San Sebastian, but it’s a lively town with a large student population, a medieval quarter, a significant modern art gallery (the Artium), and many great pintxo bars.
Accommodation options Doubles at Hotel Centro de Vitoria from €50 B&B but plenty of other hotel options including jazz tickets at jazzvitoria.com. Camping is several miles out of town; pick of the sites is Robleverde (20 minutes from Vitoria)
• Individual event tickets from €15, jazzvitoria.com
Jazz in Marciac, France
29 July-15 August
Highlight Snarky Puppy
Local mayor Jean-Louis Guilhaumon’s 1970s idea for a world-class jazz festival that could reap cultural, tourist and educational dividends for this quiet rugby-obsessed district of south-west France has surely exceeded the wildest dreams of even this most visionary of municipal officials. Guilhaumon doubles as festival president and has this year booked youthful US collective Snarky Puppy as headliners at the 39th edition of this spectacular gathering. Dianne Reeves, John McLaughlin, Maceo Parker, Ahmad Jamal and Wynton Marsalis also feature … names that resonate in jazz history and each will grace the 6,000-seat marquee set up on the town’s rugby pitch.
Accommodation options Stays in and around the village get snapped up early during the jazz fortnight (often by the musicians themselves) as the town’s population increases from 1,650 to somewhere around 20,000 each night. Therefore, late bookers will have to commute from nearby villages. Explore the options in the area at marciactourisme.com. If canvas is your thing try Camping du Lac, run by a welcoming English couple, where you can pitch tents from €19 (€22 with car). The campsite is extended during the festival.
• Tickets for individual gigs from €33, two-week marquee subscription €522, jazzinmarciac.com
Nišville, Niš, Serbia
11-14 August
Highlight Cyrus Chestnut Trio
Next to some of the west European biggies, Nišville offers great value for money, if not quite the aesthetic glories of, say, Perugia or Vienne. Not that Niš, Serbia’s third largest city, lacks appeal: the gigs are mostly staged within the Fortress, a vast green space enclosed by Ottoman walls and gates. Among some striking names to be enjoyed from only €12 a shot, are soul diva Joss Stone, hip hop-and-beyond saxophonist Soweto Kinch, flash fusion/flamenco guitar king Al Di Meola, US jazz aristocrats Cyrus Chestnut Trio featuring Buster Williams and Lenny White, and former Miles Davis saxman Bill Evans. As well as the international stars, the exciting, unpredictable rhythms of Balkan-infused jazz will carry across the avenues and squares of the city from free stages, workshops and impromptu street sessions.
Accommodation options Try centrally located and unfussily furnished Hotel Lotos (doubles from €29 B&B) and if you are on a really tight budget Hostel Marvel offers single beds in dormitories from €10pp pn or double rooms from €20.
• nisville.com
Guinness Cork Jazz
28-31 October
Highlight Randy Brecker/Alphonse Mouzon
Ireland’s biggest jazz festival is somewhat off-circuit (not being held in the summer), so often puts together great musicians outside their touring schedule. This year, for example, will see top New York trumpeter Randy Brecker, guitarist Larry Coryell and former Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder drummer Alphonse Mouzon playing together at the Everyman Theatre. The festival was started in 1978 by Jim Mountjoy, the Metropole hotel’s marketing manager, in a bid to boost visitor numbers, and it has worked triumphantly: Cork Jazz is now a lure for around 40,000 music lovers drawn, in previous years, by names such as Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie. Up to 60 venues stage jazz at this friendly festival, ranging from street corners, to small bars, galleries and theatres – most of it free.
Accommodation options Rooms are bound to be under pressure in the small city; one B&B worth booking early is Garnish House (doubles from €150), which supplies a breakfast lavish enough to keep jazzers on top of the beat all day.
• Updates on Facebook and at jazzfestival2016.com
