Considered by the international jazz community as a ‘true’ jazz festival and a beacon of artistic integrity, the Malta Jazz Festival is organised in mid-July by Festivals Malta and presents a panorama of jazz music in all its facets. In a climate where jazz festivals increasingly water down their line-ups with non-jazz elements, the Malta Jazz Festival stands out as an event that achieves a perfect balance between the savant and more popular elements of jazz, offering a program of world-class musicians that doesn’t compromise on the ‘jazz’ element. Since its inception in 1991, by the late Charles ‘City’ Gatt, the Malta Jazz Festival has hosted the most important jazz musicians, some of which have passed into the annals of jazz history, including Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Michael Brecker, Elvin Jones, Lee Konitz and Paul Bley, among many others. The festival also has a strong local dimension and strives to stimulate the local jazz scene through exchanges, collaborations, commissions and free masterclasses. In the lead-up to the festival the streets of Valletta and other localities resonate with jazz with the ‘Jazz on the Fringe’ peripheral activities.