The full lineup for the 2016 TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival was released at a press conference on Wednesday (May 11), and once again organizers have struck a fine balance between a full plate of crowd-pleasing headliners and a deep roster of musical innovators. On the big-ticket front, look out for neo-soul diva Lauryn Hill, the beautifully rootsy Tedeschi Trucks Band, and the locally beloved Sarah McLachlan, with one of the most-anticipated shows being a much-buzzed-about project featuring k.d. lang, Neko Case, and Laura Veirs.

“We’ve been trying to get k.d. for years,” Coastal Jazz and Blues Society artistic director Ken Pickering told the Georgia Straight in a telephone interview prior to the launch. “She was actually confirmed last year, and then had to cancel for family reasons. So there’s a bit of a make-good aspect to this show.…They reached out to me and said k.d.’s working on this special project with Neko Case and Laura Veirs. And that was, like, ‘Holy smokes!’

“This is in some ways just more interesting than doing a normal show by any one of these artists,” Pickering adds. “I wasn’t that familiar with Laura’s work and started checking her stuff out, and was totally blown away by that Warp and Weft album.”

Although former Vancouverite lang is still considered an alt.country icon, in recent years her inspired reinterpretations of standards—and a Grammy-winning album of duets with veteran crooner Tony Bennett—have given her a fair bit of jazz cred. Case, another one-time Lower Mainland resident, often hires improvisers to add spice to her more rock-oriented but essentially uncategorizable releases. And while the Portland-based Veirs is the least well-known of the three, she might have the strongest ties to jazz: her husband and producer Tucker Martine is a drummer and recording engineer who has worked extensively with jazz-fest favourites Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz.

“As soon as I saw that I went ‘This is really amazing,’” Pickering notes. “There’s all this web of interconnections through that world. And, I mean, she name-drops John Coltrane on one tune: she obviously knows a lot about jazz and creative music.”

Smaller concerts to consider during the jazz festival, which runs from June 24 to July 3, include the effusive Japanese pianist Hiromi, the deeply emotive singer Gregory Porter, and the masterful saxophonist Joe Lovano, all at the Vogue, and a strong North Shore lineup topped by Tom Waits/Elvis Costello sideman Marc Ribot’s scarifying avant-rock project, Ceramic Dog.

All the above, along with a plethora of free outdoor shows and some new international developments, mean that taking a Vancouver staycation towards the end of June makes more sense than ever. The festival’s Made in the U.K. and Spotlight on French Jazz initiatives both turn five this year, and both offer local listeners a rare opportunity to tour the best of London and Paris without having to stray far from home.

Pickering cites French artists Emile Parisien and Donkey Monkey as among those to watch; frequent visitor Benoît Delbecq also returns, sharing his otherworldly piano with locals François Houle, Gordon Grdina, and Kenton Loewen. The ever-radical saxophonist Evan Parker, another honorary Vancouverite, is at the core of the English program, and in that context he’ll debut a new string-trio-assisted quartet with B.C.’s Peggy Lee, Torsten Müller, and Meredith Bates. Pickering cites the astonishing pianist Alexander Hawkins as another performer not to miss, along with newcomers Mammal Hands and Christine Tobin.

Pickering also cites new exchanges with jazz promoters in Poland and Italy as further evidence of his event’s international outlook.

“Both of these are an outcome of my visits to Jazz Ahead, a conference that happens on an annual basis in Bremen,” he explains. “I also met Piotr Turkiewicz, who’s the Jazztopad [Festival] guy in Wroclaw, Poland, at the Take Five project south of London. That was a very interesting educational project where the idea is that they invite musicians who are ready for prime time, in that 30-ish zone, who were ready to make the next step up—not just in terms of music, but in terms of learning about the business of music and everything that you need to know to really survive in today’s climate.

“The deal is they have this organic farm in Kent, so they invite 10 musicians, and they hang out for five days. They spend all day together, starting with breakfast in the morning and ending with the late-night hang in the evening. In between, they develop large-ensemble music, directed by John Surman, and then they have guest speakers come in and talk about everything from social media to legal issues in the music business.

“I was invited to audit the program, as was Piotr, and that’s how this connection to Poland began to unfold,” Pickering adds, pointing out that it’s a two-way street: several Vancouver players have already been invited to the 2017 edition of Jazztopad. “Piotr’s very much on the same page as we are, and he’s very much into looking out into the world to find partners who share his point of view.”

The jazz festival’s commitment to Vancouver musicians has also deepened this year, with the hiring of Pugs and Crows guitarist Cole Schmidt as its first-ever guest programmer.

“He’s one of our favourite young musicians, and he’s also done a lot of grassroots presenting at venues like Merge and the Lido,” Pickering says. “So he’s had a huge role to play in the makeup of our local programming, which has maybe a fresher look than it has in the past. It’s been pretty exciting for me to work with one of the younger guys on the scene who’s really doing some stellar work, and it was also valuable for him to get a sense of what working at a higher level entails. It was fantastic, actually.”

Another new, locally focused initiative is Common Grounds, which will find jazz trumpeter and composer Al Matheson’s septet teaming up with keyboardist Alexander Weimann and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra for an evening at Christ Church Cathedral. The intent is to locate and examine the links between the music of Johannes Sebastian Bach’s time and that of our own, with improvisation and counterpoint the through-lines.

“The idea of collaboration is becoming more and more important,” Pickering asserts. “It’s the way of the world, and so it’s incumbent on us to find ways to work with local music communities—and international music communities as well.”

For more details and a complete festival schedule, visit www.coastaljazz.ca/.