I’m in Cheltenham this weekend for the Jazz Festival.

It’s not just music going on here… I’ve been moderating a couple of discussions that have been pretty well attended too, even with a £5 entry fee on the door. Some great speakers and some really helpful advice for people wanting to get started in the music industries (where have I heard that before?).

The first one was about careers in event production, featuring a woman from Glastonbury Festival, a seasoned tour manager and a roadie and tech for Steve Winwood.

The second was about running your own record label, featuring Dave Stapleton from Edition Records and Dave Douglas, who runs Greenleaf Music.

Both were really good talks – and it was great to spend time with the two Daves (both of whom I knew before) – and then a concert this evening by the Edition Quartet – featuring Dave Stapleton on piano, Neil Yates on trumpet, Marius Neset on sax and Daniel Herskedal on tuba.

All individually Edition Records artists, working together in a quartet. Just captivatingly beautiful music.

I was hanging out with Dave after the gig, and one of the audience members approached to tell him it was one of his three best gigs of all time. It really was that special.

I hadn’t really encountered Neil Yates’s playing, but I absolutely loved what he did – and what Daniel Herskedal did with a tuba was amazing. Overtones and chords, looping and – I guess you’d call it beatboxing… through a TUBA.

Goes without saying that Marius was amazing – and that Dave brought it all together beautifully. That’s what they do. Melodic and meditative, unhurried (the first piece was half an hour long) and breathtakingly lovely. You should really check out what Edition does – even if it’s not usually your sort of thing. Here’s a sampler.

It was lovely to finally meet Fiona Talkington from BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction too. She was instrumental in putting these musicians together as part of her Norwegian/UK ‘Conexions’ project – and she’s chairing the panel on Music Marketing that I’m speaking on tomorrow.

I could have popped back and forth from Birmingham – Cheltenham’s only an hour down the road. But it was worth staying over for this. Really glad I did.