With temperatures still a little on the cool side, music lovers could do worse than head to Bray this coming weekend. With musicians from more than 30 international acts on its jazz trail, Bray Jazz Festival looks set to see the mercury rising.

MORE than 1,000 musicians helped drive the blues away as a rain-drenched Cork had another bumper weekend of jazz and razzmatazz.

IT’S said jazz came to America in chains as the native rhythms of imported slaves but it breaks free from all shackles of convention and tradition in this year’s Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.