This was my second time at the Stockholm Jazz festival, having totally enjoyed India Arie last year. This year, we signed up for The Tower of Power and Mary J Blige on the Wednesday and Van Morrison and Joan Armatrading on the Saturday. My friend Paul Adams had made the trip over from England and spent a day at our home in the Swedish countryside before booking into his hotel in downtown Stockholm.

On the Wednesday, Paul and I made our way to Skeppsholmen a wonderful, picturesque, waterfront venue, after I had taken Paul around "Gamla Stan" Stockholm's old town. What hits you straight away at the SJF is the laid back atmosphere and how straight-laced everything is, drug use is uncool in Sweden and this makes for a very family friendly experience. The audience sit on benches and are fringed by picnic style eating areas and there is plenty of food and drink on offer at premium prices.

Paul and I positioned ourselves for the appearance of Tower of Power a formidable funk, jazz, soul outfit from Oakland, California. Looking around us we noted this was not your average audience for such a concert and certainly not what you would expect at a Mary J Blige concert. To our left was a man who spent most of the T of P set pushing his earplugs deeper into his ears looking in distress. Before long after coming to the conclusion that T of P would be better off being the backing band for someone else both Paul and I were tempted to borrow the guys ear plugs.

After a break, Mary J stormed onto the stage, 100% hip-hop, soul queen, who sang her heart out and gave a performance worthy of a more appreciative audience. Paul and I differed in our views on her vocal style, my conclusion was that though both in our middle years Paul has slipped into being a "I don't hold with all this hippety-hop music of the younger generation" elder statesman of soul appreciation.

On the Saturday, despite forecasts of an impending monsoon, my wife Kristin our daughter Shona and I set off to Stockholm to meet up with Paul and then on to see Van and Joan. Upon arriving in Stockholm, it was apparent the weather forecasters had got it wrong, and it turned out to be a fantastic summer evening. Van Morrison was in great form and performed a 90 minutes set that broadly spanned the last 20 years of his work.

This of course is the joy and pain of being a Van Morrison fan that you want to hear all the best of the past 40 years and that is just not possible in 90 minutes. However, all in all a fine performance by "The Man", my daughter Shona's first concert at 22 months old. Shona totally enjoyed being on her father's shoulders dancing as Van sang a wonderful reworking of "And the Healing Has Begun".

Paul was shocked as many of the audience preferred to use the occasion to chat to friends. I explained Swedes don't get out that often to socialise, this is the cultural difference he was witnessing and did not try to defend the morons who had bought a ticket to chat (loudly) while a performer was giving it his best shot in the circumstances.

Joan Armatrading was brilliant. Playing most of her recent album "Into the Blues" and many of her classics including "Love and Affection" "All The Way From America" and "Me, Myself, I". Joan can certainly still pump it out and has matured into a style that gets better with age, slightly more blues orientated these days complimenting her considerable talents as a guitarist; all in all a very enjoyable performance.

July in Stockholm for me is the Stockholm Jazz Festival, and I eagerly wait to see what is lined up for 2009.