Cream of the jazz world, condensed in Glasgow

The Glasgow Jazz festival is cramming ten days into five this year, but there's no stinting on quality, with some world-renowned musicians taking their turns on stage

ASK RENOWNED Polish jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stanko how his homeland informs his playing and he puts it down to the light … maybe.

"I don't know exactly," muses the 69-year-old musician, one of the headline acts in the forthcoming Glasgow Jazz Festival, "but I have a little melancholy feeling in me and I think it comes from our light in Poland."

"Frederic Chopin has that kind of mood," he laughs, conceding that the piano maestro was part-French and spent much of his time in Paris. "But he was born in Poland."

Stanko is arguably Europe's most celebrated jazz trumpeter, a man whose blend of controlled melodic lyricism and free improvisation mark him out for many as a stylistic successor to Miles Davis who, he agrees, "is a kind of guru", but the Pole's spare, eloquently voiced phrases and rich, dark tone seem distinctly to resonate out of old Europe, and have sometimes been described as Slavic soul music. Unlike some of his stablemates on the influential ECM label, particularly the current rich crop of Nordic jazzers, whatever native sensibility informs his music is drawn from mood, rather than folk music. "Sound is one of the most important things for me," he says, speaking from New York, where he has a pied terre when not living in Warsaw. "It is part of my soul."

Stanko was to have shared a headline Glasgow festival gig with Lee Konitz, a veteran figurehead of the "cool" jazz movement, who actually played with Miles Davis in the ground-breaking Birth of the Cool sessions. It would have been a rare encounter, but it was not to be. The seemingly unstoppable 83-year-old American was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery in Melbourne earlier this month while on tour, having suffered a subdural haematoma – bleeding on the brain.

The 69-year-old Stanko, who has given memorable performances at Glasgow in the past, was still hoping that Konitz might show when I spoke to him last week, but that now seems highly unlikely. "He is a historic name," said Stanko, who admires Konitz's early adventures in free jazz with the likes of Lennie Tristano. Stanko jammed with Konitz in Poland a while back and was relishing a fresh encounter.

Stanko will still play, however, in what promises to be a memorable evening at the Old Fruitmarket, in the company of the German-Israeli-American piano trio Minsarah, who were set to accompany Konitz.

It's a line-up which encapsulates something of the eclectic nature of the Glasgow Jazz Festival since it kicked off in the summer of 1987, when its inaugural composer-in-residence was the late, great alto-saxist Benny Carter. Fittingly, Carter's commission from that year, The Glasgow Suite, will be reprised during this year's festival by Ken Mathieson's Classic Jazz Orchestra, when they launch their new album of Carter's music at the Tron Theatre, as well as revisiting the canon of another of the festival's composers-in-residence, the also sadly departed Gerry Mulligan, whose Flying Scotsman will build up a renewed head of steam with Mathieson's band, featuring guest Alan Barnes on sax.

Mathieson was the festival's first director and the event is celebrating its quarter-centenary by inviting back some celebrated past guests. As well as Stanko, notable returnees include the seemingly ageless Cleo Laine, New Orleans trumpet ace Terence Blanchard, fiery saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, Dutch swing violinist Tim Kliphuis, the ebullient singer Ian Shaw (who also guests with the Ryan Quigley Big Band), trombonist Dennis Rollins' Velocity Trio and sax crusader Courtney Pine with his current Europa ensemble.

First-time headliners at the festival include American pianist Ramsey Lewis revisiting his popular jazz-pop crossover album of 1975, Sun Goddess, Oscar-winning pianist and composer (as well as collaborator with everyone from Miles Davis to Bjrk) Michel Legrand, southern blues legend Leon Russell and the leading light of the "Ethio-jazz" melting pot, Mulatu Astatke.

Scottish acts returning to the festival include: trumpeter Ryan Quigley, both with his trio (featuring Del Amitri singer Justin Currie) and in big band mode; Tommy Smith, who will play with his Karma quartet and the Tommy Smith Youth Orchestra, as well as leading the Scottish National Jazz orchestra in their Worlds of the Gods collaboration with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers; guitarist Martin Taylor; Brass Jaw; and singers Carol Kidd, Stephen Duffy and Todd Gordon. Pianist Brian Kellock is back too, joined in muscular duet by American cornettist Warren Vache.

Emerging names include the Herbie-Hancock-Wayne-Shorter-endorsed young singer Gretchen Parlato and the nicely reflective young trumpeter Matthew Halsall, not to mention the Slovakian gypsy guitar prodigy, 13-year-old Andreas Varady. Engrossing new ensembles include Breach, combining ubiquitous piano and Hammond-organ player Paul Harrison with drummer Chris Wallace and guitarist Graeme Steven, in concert with Stephen's other prog-jazz project, NeWt, and Meadow, a much-hailed trio of three musicians associated with the ECM label: pianist John Taylor, saxophonist Tore Brunborg and drummer Thomas Stronen.

The festival also includes a Jazz On Film season, curated by music journalist Alison Kerr, at the City Halls Club Room, while this year's festival club is based in the Thistle Hotel. And, yes, once again the last sea-going paddle steamer, Waverley, will churn tunefully doon the watter in the annual Riverboat Shuffle.

This year's programme, while celebratory, is markedly shorter than previous years, paring the festival from ten down to five days, albeit crowded ones. Like everyone else in arts administration these days, the festival's long-standing director, Jill Rodger, started the year amid financial uncertainty. "When I started to programme the 2011 festival the funding situation was still unclear," she says. "As it was, for the 25th edition we needed to do something different and special. Having a straight run of dates in the City Halls/Old Fruitmarket complex was the starting point, and by shifting to a five-day period then this was easier to accomplish.

"The programme grew organically, making use of all the spaces available in the complex and we now have almost 80 gigs over the five-day period - from those who have played over the past 24 years, as well as some names on 'wish lists' from previous years who we've never managed to secure before – Ramsey Lewis and Michel Legrand."

• Glasgow Jazz Festival runs from 29 June to 3 July. See www.jazzfest.co.uk