The upcoming Canadian jazz calendar includes festivals aplenty and the appearance of double bass icon Ron Carter

This weekend’s Newport Jazz Festival is the highlight event of the genre’s summer season, with headliners including Herbie Hancock, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Canada’s Diana Krall, but there is still plenty of live jazz here in Canada this month and next.

Kaslo Jazz Etc Summer Music Festival

Come for jazz; stay for the et cetera. At a groovy festival that this year celebrates its 30th anniversary, a floating stage on British Columbia’s Kootenay Lake excites the kayak set with performances by Toronto contemporary jazzers Badbadnotgood and New Orleans’s brassy traditionalists the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as star singer-songwriter Allison Russell, American jam band Galactic and much more. Aug. 4 to 6, Kaslo Bay Park, B.C.

Stratford Summer Music Festival

Come for the Stratford Festival’s King Lear (played by Paul Gross); stay for the music festival running concurrently. Jazz highlights include the closing-night appearance of American guitarist John Pizzarelli, known for tribute albums dedicated to Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Richard Rodgers and Paul McCartney. Until Aug. 13

Prince Edward County Jazz Festival

A show by the quintet led by saxophonist Allison Young at the Sandbanks Estate Winery is sold out, but at press time tickets were still available for concerts at the festival’s main venue in St. Mary Magdalene Church. Among the headliners is a fivesome led by Marc Jordan, the American-born Canadian singer-songwriter whose Rhythm of My Heart was a hit for Rod Stewart. His latest album is Waiting for the Sun to Rise, an elegant exercise in melody and intimate musical ideas that includes a gently swinging version of Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears. Aug. 15 to 20, Picton, Ont.

Ron Carter

Peter Schnall’s lively 2022 PBS documentary on the illustrious American double bassist Ron Carter is called Finding the Right Notes. So how does the 86-year-old alumnus of the second Miles Davis Quintet know he has hit the absolute ideal sound? “It’s a note that gets everyone to stop whatever they’re doing and get up off the ground because my note just knocked them over,” he said recently. Next month he guests with the University of Montreal Graduates Jazz Orchestra, whose members will receive their hardest-hitting test yet. Sept. 7, Place des Arts, Montreal

Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix

The alto saxophonist and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin recently talked publicly about the time she tried to jump on stage with Prince in Las Vegas. So much for things staying in Vegas, and so much for sticking to one genre. The effervescent Benjamin believes in funk, hip hop and soul in addition to jazz, and has worked with pop artists Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys, as well as legendary jazzers Clark Terry, Reggie Workman and James (Blood) Ulmer. Her latest album is this year’s Phoenix, the sure-footed, dynamic work of a risk taker. Sept. 29, George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto