The Twin Cities [Hot Summer Jazz Festival](http://www.hotsummerjazz.com/) starts with a bang this weekend in St Paul at Mears Park. I'll be in the northern woods of Wisconsin, but you can bet that I won't be missing out on next weekend's performances in downtown Minneapolis, and possible some of the other events during the week.
This really is the best event for people local to the Twin Cities to get exposed to incredibly good jazz. Jazz, like the modern pop music "Rock" that has replaced it turned into a huge and essentially unwieldly polyglot of different musical styles over the almost century since it first started appearing. I know that some people think of the more esoteric noise experiments and long seemingly unfocused and wandering riffs and are quite turned off by that. While there is certainly that, with both excellent and horrendous, examples I think people will be pleasently surprised to hear lots of music that is melodic and accessible within that huge range of styles over the next week or so.
Give it a try, you'll be glad you did.