AFEW weeks ago I drew your attention to the upcoming Southport Jazz Festival, one of the healthy number of similar annual celebrations of our kind of music.

Well, now is the time for you to finalise your plans as the Southport Jazzfest starts next Thursday and runs until Sunday, June 22.

I am well aware that not everyone can organise their lives around such events but if, like me, you have the time, and the inclination, then I suggest a trip there will be well worth the effort.

I always use Southport as an appetiser for the wonderful Wigan Jazz Festival, due to run from July 11 to July 20. In saying that I am not being disrespectful to Southport, which tries its level best to put on names as big as financial constraints will allow.

The truth is Wigan has mushroomed over the last decade into perhaps the biggest and most influential jazzfest in Europe so Southport's organisers have no reason to feel inferior when it comes to the quality of musicians and singers booked to appear.

For example, they have achieved something of a coup in securing the services of the incredibly-talented Jamie Cullum, of whom I wrote a couple of weeks ago after he had signed a £1million recording deal.

Whatever else you do, try to catch this young man's appearance. TV chat show host and jazz expert Michael Parkinson raves about him and so do a number of other good judges.

Other musicians and singers booked include Heather Small of M People; The Snake Davis Band; the BBC Radio Big Band with Claire Martin and Ian Shaw; The Chris Barber Big Band and brilliant saxophonist Alan Barnes. Call 01704 395511 for a free guide; e-mail jazzfestival@visitsouthport.com or visit the festival website www.southportJazz.com.

Tommy Melville, bandleader and booker at The Rhythm Station tells me that he has something special to offer the venue's patrons next Tuesday when American pianist/singer Ellyn Rucker appears.

Born in Iowa, Ellyn was always going to be a musician as her mother was a church organist, her father a cornet player and her brother a drummer and bass player. She studied classical piano until the age of 13 when her brother, already an accomplished musician in the jazz world, influenced her to start playing jazz piano and she worked hotels for several years.

She turned full time professional in 1979 and came to the attention of the great Mark Murphy, one of the most accomplished and respected jazz vocalists ever to grace a stage.

Ellyn has gone on to establish a considerable reputation as an accomplished jazz pianist/singer, working with such luminaries as Roy Eldridge, James Moody, Kenny Burrell, Clark Terry and Buddy Tate.

Her date at The Rhythm Station is part of her current European tour which takes in France, Germany, Spain and Belgium as well as the UK.