The PEC Jazz Festival now has two artistic directors. Sarah Kim Turnbull, in charge of the five Main Stage events, is bringing in nationally known performers, while local guitarist Brian Legere has organized more than two dozen “satellite shows,” featuring local musicians as well as those from afar.

Ms. Turnbull, who brings her arts management skills to several festivals every year, loves the County’s unique combination of music and a sense of place. “The wineries! How cool is that? To be able to hear live music in these stunning environments is what makes this festival really special. Other festivals are really contained. 

“There’s something really fun about the opportunity to explore: you get to go all over the County with the Jazz Festival! No matter where you land you’re in a really beautiful space.”

The festival gives local residents, who make up about 40 percent of attendees, a reason to become “a tourist in your own town,” as she puts it.

Mr. Legere, originally from Hamilton, has lived here for eight years, following a long career on the Toronto music scene, both as a teacher and performer. His guitar and vocal stylings have roots in jazz, blues and rock, as well as folk — all “Americana,” as he puts it.

Most of jazz’s musical forms are traditionally urban. “When I came out here, I thought I’d be strumming the guitar by myself, which was fine. But with Brian Barlow’s help I actually found some players to play with immediately,” says Mr. Legere, who agrees that the per capita talent in the County is shocking, whether it is musicians, artists or businesspeople like those who lend their expertise to the Jazz Festival committee.

“I saw the writing on the wall in this place. We saw what happened in Niagara: when wineries come in, you know, things change no matter what. You’re going to get restaurants, and all the spin-offs from the whole scene.”

One advantage of the more relaxed County scene is a freedom of expression. “For some reason, the good thing about being out here is I seem to be able to do what I want. I think the audiences out here are really good.”

The variety on offer this year is remarkable. Popular acts like Big Smoke Brass and veteran singer Molly Johnson complement the up-and-coming singer Denielle Bassels, and the Afro-Caribbean sounds of steelpan artist Joy Lapps, whose band features her husband, drummer Larnell Lewis, as well as guitarist Eric St-Laurent, who appears in his own concert the next evening at St. Mary Magdalene church.

Of the Joy Lapps band, Mr. St-Laurent laughs, “I love playing with them. It’s just beautiful: she’s a wonderful steelpan player from Trinidad playing calypso music that is also informed by jazz and rock and all kinds of other types of music. It’s a very Toronto mix. There are no boundaries. I think what she and I have in common is that we look for simple euphoria in music. She’s really going for joy—no pun intended.”

Eric St-Laurent’s concert with his own quartet will aim for the same kind of effect. Originally from Montreal, he lived in the United States and Germany before landing in multicultural Toronto. Along the way he absorbed many musical influences, and in Toronto in particular, Latin sounds.

“The more complicated the principles are, the stupider the outcome!” he says. “Right now, that’s not what I’m looking for. The idea is to look for really simple things that cause joy in the music. The name of the game is simplicity, joy — and dance, even.”

Ironically, the smaller you go, the more freedom you have, he suggests. His quartet will play familiar tunes from the Great American Songbook, adding in popular music from the Americas. “So we might play Brazilian standards, great Cuban tunes from the ’40s like ‘Tico-Tico’, which were once extremely popular and then considered cheesy, but I think they’re fantastic.”

This kind of accessibility gets to the heart of music making. “If you’re playing real improvised music it’s about communicating, right? That’s why people like it. Music is a language: you’re just using notes instead of words. It’s a communication thing all the time,” says Mr. Legere.

The sociability of music extends, of course to bringing people together. As Ms. Turnbull notes, “the team of people that put this festival together are just so dedicated and talented. I feel really lucky to step into a festival that is so well established and that’s run by an awesome group of people.”

Mr. Legere is particularly pleased with the final show of the festival, the Mike Murley/Mark Eisenman Quartet. “Mike and I were both studying at York University during the same period. We were both freelancing around town in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and we worked together a few times in workshops while promoting our music programs.” Both Mr. Murley and Mr. Legere note that legendary drummer Terry Clarke is in the band. Mr. Clarke has been a mainstay of Canadian music since the 1960s, appearing on hundreds of recordings in all kinds of contexts. For this particular gig, he will be marking his 80th birthday. The Waring House is the place to be on the evening of Sunday August 18th. 

The full August 13-18 schedule and tickets are available at the Jazz Festival page.