June is a great time to hear jazz in Ottawa -- especially this year.

The Ottawa International Jazz Festival, a rite of summer at Confederation Park (and other venues including the National Arts Centre and Library and Archives Canada), has just announced its lineup for this summer's gathering, and both serious jazz fans and dabblers should be elated.

The festival opens its headline series on June 20 with quintessential jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Centre Orchestra. Over the festival's 10-day run, it will roll out an impressive lineup of jazz stars and lesser-known artists. Among big-bill names is Herbie Hancock who just won a Grammy award for his tribute to Canadian icon Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters. Other headliners include clarinetist Buddy De Franco, singer Madeleine Peyroux, pianist Oliver Jones, and Chick Corea with his fusion band Return to Forever.

Festival organizers are right to brag about their ability to draw big names to the 28-year-old Ottawa event which has steadily gained recognition as one of the country's top jazz festivals. This year, 320 musicians will take the festival's various stages.

Non-jazz fans should also be paying attention to the flourishing festival. Urban studies guru Richard Florida in several books including Rise of the Creative Class, argues that creative factors, such as music festivals, play a big role in where people chose to live and how vibrant and liveable those places are.

Which makes the jazz festival worth blowing our horn about.