The new Oxford Jazz Festival, now in its third year, continues to expand at an almost exponential rate. This Easter weekend, from Thursday to Sunday the city will be flooded with music from a diverse range of musicians and composers with 60 different jazz events at 30 different venues.

As before, the festival will take place in some of the larger central venues through to small pubs, bars and clubs.

To make all this wealth of music more coherent the programme has been organised through the four days in specific areas of the city.

Thus, on Thursday, there is a concentration in the east from the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room and up the Cowley Road.

On Friday, events swing into the city centre with a whole day of concerts in the Town Hall and in Jericho.

Saturday sees events in the Randolph Hotel in the centre and in Summertown.

Finally. on Sunday. the festival turns west for a day at the Said Business School.

Headline acts this year include saxophonist Soweto Kinch and singer Norma Winston representing opposite poles of the jazz idiom.

Norma Winston MBE, a highly respected figure in British jazz for decades, is known for her sophisticated, lyrical and highly individual use of the voice with Azimuth.

This year, she is coming to the Randolph Hotel as part of an international tour with Italian pianist Glauco Venier and Klaus Gesing on sax and bass clarinet.

Soweto Kinch, on the other hand, despite a history degree at the university, has made his name as an aggressive saxophonist and rapper whose landmark concept album A Day in the Life of B19 mixes dub, jazz and narration to throw musical light on life on the dole in a Birmingham tower block.

His sax playing ranges from the edge of rap to a sharp lyricism reminiscent of his bebop predecessors.

Between these two poles lie the intellectualism of pianist Kit Downes at the Randolph, guitarist Nicolas Meier at St Michael at the Northgate, whose eastern influences give extra depth to the music, the unstoppable veteran saxophonist Bobby Wellins at the North Wall in Summertown and Tim Whitehead at the city’s favourite venue, the Spin off High Street.

Keeping with tradition of the past two years the festival also gives more local talent the opportunity to shine, starting with the winners of the Jazz Factor competition for local teenage talent.

Vocalist Alison Bentley brings her own quartet, including the delightfully energetic Jonathan Gee, to the Said Business School and guitarist Hugh Turner takes one of the afternoon slots at the Town Hall followed by the exceptional Big Colours big band. Among the many events in smaller venues in the city look out for Jez Cook in guitar duo at the Half Moon in St Clements and the truly exceptional Deidre Cartwright with Cathy Dyson at Cafe Tarifa in the Cowley Road.

Beyond the music there will be a talk by Alun Shypton on the work of Ian Carr, an exploration of the genius of the late Tubby Hayes by Simon Spilllet at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop in Walton Street, and a workshop for everyone by Roger Beaujolais at the JDP.

The best way to open up this cornucopia of jazz at the Oxford Jazz Festival is to go to oxfordjazzfestival.co.uk and order tickets.