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Cheltenham hosts a festival of a different, jazzier kind for six days next week. Peter Bacon marks his card.

The runners might be notes and sounds, the riders might be saxophonists, pianists and drummers, but the excitement is just as palpable as when the venue is Cheltenham racecourse. And the added bonus with the Cheltenham Jazz Festival is there are far fewer losers.

From Wednesday the jazz musicians begin to arrive from all over the globe, the tent flags billow in the Montpelier Gardens breeze and the Cotswold town takes on a much cooler vibe. And it’s not all about stroking beards any more – Cheltenham’s jazz crowd is younger and funkier these days, due to the way it has broadened out into jazz-inflected pop with the accent on singers.

With so much to see and hear, how do you make those difficult choices? Do you opt for the favourites and potentially lower returns? Or put all your ticket money on an outsider and hope for a pot of gold? Well, for what they are worth, here are my tips.

Trumpeter Dave Douglas has been a regular Cheltenham visitor down the years but the band he brings this year is strikingly different, just as his 2012 album, Be Still, was different. It features a singer with a folkier style – on the album, Aiofe O’Donovan; for Cheltenham, Heather Masse – and material with a church feel.

It’s gorgeous stuff, in which Douglas and fellow musicians like saxophonist Donny McCaslin and pianist Matt Mitchell weave their jazz harmonies through hymns and traditional folk songs.

* Saturday, May 4 at 1.30pm in the Jazz Arena. 

Vibes master and long-time teacher at the legendary Berklee College in Boston, Gary Burton is not a frequent visitor to these shores, so it’s particularly exciting to see him on the bill.