This year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival, the biggest yet, spread right across the town, offering nine official stages and a healthy fringe. It also stretched over a full week, finishing on Bank Holiday Monday

In the vast Centaur Hall at the racecourse were the headline acts, Eartha Kitt and Van Morrison, the latter fronting a cracking back-up band, with whom he intoned a string of past hits in his foghorn monotone. He also overdid his amateurish alto sax, given the festival's many world-class players.

But the charisma he lacked was more than made up for by James Brown's veteran altoist Maceo Parker, who exerted so much energy exhorting us to get down and funky that it was a relief when he picked up the horn for some pithy soloing. Guesting in this otherwise all-American group with some fiery trombone was Britain's Dennis Rollins, a man so good, Parker told us, “that he's got his own band!”.

The greatest magic happened in the more intimate venues. At the Pillar Room the British singer Gwyneth Herbert produced a polished set of original songs. Her guitarist, Al Cherry, is a genius at creating the right setting for her quirky lyrics and strong storylines. Slow Down Brother was a perfect balance of original writing and skilful delivery. The percussionist Dave Price took up the violin and, with Sam Burges's bowed bass, created a minimalist melancholy for her most affecting vocals.

The Pillar Room also hosted two contrasting sets by musicians from New York's Downtown scene, the saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Bobby Previte. Berne's coruscating group Science Friction was well matched by the muscular playing of Previte's New Bump on its first British appearance. He and the vibes player Bill Ware stoked up a rhythmic frenzy on You've Got The Wrong Guy, encapsulating aggressive urban energy.

The Jerwood Charitable Foundation again supported new music by British musicians. In the Everyman Theatre Iain Ballamy's purposeful commission framed some fine playing by the veteran ECM bassist Palle Danielsson, while Soweto Kinch's Basement Fables mixed visuals, rapping and poetry with his virtuosic alto sax.

The finest moments came from older masters. Jack DeJohnette enraptured us, mainly playing solo drums but crowned with a guest appearance by the saxophonist Ravi Coltrane for some fascinating free improvisational exchanges. The Italian duo of the trumpeter Enrico Rava and pianist Stefano Bollani displayed brilliant wit, notably as Bollani tried to teach Rava Cheek to Cheek, the results cascading through several keys and uneven bar lengths on each successive chorus.

But the highlight was the guitarist Bill Frisell's new band. A musician of eclectic tastes, he explored swing, South African rhythms and old-style bebop with freshness and invention, as the drummer Rudy Royston and bassist Larry Gernadier pushed the group into ever-more exciting ingenuity.

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