Jazz is Where You Find It: Fest Jazz 2025 in Brittany

It has been our pleasure over the years to combine sight-seeing trips abroad with visits to diverse jazz clubs, festivals, and concerts in Ascona, Edinburgh, Oslo, Visby, Copenhagen, Cardiff, Kingsbridge, and Colchester. But it was pure serendipity that brought us to FestJazz 2025 in Brittany, France. While planning a meandering vacation through Northwestern France, we were searching online for music venues to visit while we traveled, and we discovered Fest Jazz in Chateauneuf-du-Faou, a small enclave in the gorgeous Brittany countryside. Started by Trevor Stent, a clarinetist, and other local musicians 20 years ago, and overseen by the foundation Jazz Kreizh Breizh (Jazz of Central Brittany), they’ve been putting this event on every July ever since.

Though the town is small, the festival is not truly small but also not too big. By essentially taking over a holiday campground alongside the lovely Aulne river and canal, the festival hosts several thousand visitors over four days, including many French day-trippers but also jazzhounds from elsewhere. Amazingly, it’s run—and very well-run—by a large contingent of local volunteers, giving the event the atmosphere of a giant, friendly, and relaxed multi-day picnic, with families, a large kids zone, and picnic tables where you can enjoy wonderful Breton galettes (crepes) while the shows go on close by under huge tents. Swing dancers are accommodated with dance floors at each stage. This year a British car club brought vintage vehicles to enjoy when you took a break from the music.

The main attraction, of course, is the music, and with 33 acts across three stages, there is plenty to hear. The program emphasized trad and hot jazz, alongside of swing, boogie-woogie, standards, gypsy jazz, and a bit of other rock and folk. This year’s headliners included Gunhild Carling and Tuba Skinny (we were thrilled to hear them twice), and the weekend kicked off with Stephanie Trick and Paulo Alderighi, with whom we were familiar and are always superb.

Many shows featured performers from across Europe, most of whom were new to us. Some of the most memorable to us were The Fried Seven, The Salty Dogs, and the Mama Shakers (all tight New Orleans-style bands); Malo Mazurie and Prokhar Burlak (absolutely great swing trumpet and tenor sax, respectively); Ladyva (bodacious boogie piano); Les Freres (featuring three fabulous Manouche-style guitarists).; and Ray Time (a Ray Charles tribute that featured a marvelous French chanteuse who could channel both Ray and the Raelettes!). Let me be quick to add that many, many other impressive musicians played throughout the weekend as well.

While we were there, we had the opportunity to learn a bit about the Jazz Kreizh Breizh organization. Besides hosting Fest Jazz, they support youth jazz education programs in Breton schools, providing lecture programs to explain jazz and Black history, and running workshops with young musicians. They are committed to passing along the music we love to the next generation. That spirit also was reflected in the festival program, which included the Capital Focus Jazz Band, a youth group from Washington, DC, and No Lazz, a collaboration of young musicians from New Orleans with Brittany high schoolers.

We found Brittany to be a beautiful region to visit in every respect, with warm and generous people, and it’s an easy hop over from Britain or Ireland (coming from the USA, we stopped in Dublin on the way). For us, though, Fest Jazz was absolutely the icing on the cake for this trip. We were so fortified by the music and the community vibe of Fest Jazz that we are making plans to return this coming year, and we highly recommend this festival for jazz lovers seeking a thoroughly refreshing experience.