It won’t be long before Harlow has some kind of jazz and blues festival and starts touting itself as the spiritual home of Miles Davis and B.B. King.
Until then, lovers of musical dissonance in all senses of the word will have to content themselves with the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (July 25 - August 3), an improbable marriage of buttery-walled tea shops and hardcore musical experimentation, featuring the Syncopators, Steve Kettley and Big Chris Barber, who we have to say looks disappointingly small in the photographs.
Revellers will be warming up the city for the festival and fringe, which starts in August, so may find sourcing accommodation difficult, although Morton Hall campsite and the Fringe accommodation message board (www.edfringe.com) can usually be relied upon to throw something up (indeed, your living quarters may look like they have been thrown up on, so choose a landlord carefully). Tickets are about amp;#163;8, with some events free. And not a bagpipe in sight.
www.edinburghjazzfestival.co.uk.