Book now: Manchester Jazz Festival

Metal and Jazz: two genres completely overlooked by the mainstream media, but thriving regardless. Whereas metalheads go off to Download festival for their weekend every year, Jazz aficionados pop up to the rainy city for Machester Jazz Festival,  now in it’s 18th year. Spread across 10 days and 7 venues, the 74 acts consist of old favourites, rising stars and entirely new commissions.  Though the names might not mean much to broad swathes of the population, you can bet that there will be packed houses for legendary Pharaoh Sanders, a rush to get in for Spanish harmonica virtuoso Antonio Serrano and a swell of bouncing heads for French pocket brass band Journal InTime’s celebration of Jimi Hendrix. If those names drew a blank, don’t fret – that’s all part of the fun of the festival, and with a variety of free shows available throughout, there’s enough to dip your toes in to see if you’re one of those people who likes Jazz. They’ve even extended the event this year, adding on an extra Sunday, enabling everyone to wind-down to the sultry tones Sara Colman. The full festival programme – and it is mightily impressive – is now available through the website.

Fri 26 Jul – Sun 4 Aug, Jazz Festival Pavilion, Albert Square, M2 5DB, http://www.manchesterjazz.com/