In the city of festivals, where there is a fest for seemingly every occasion and each day of the year, what is Montreal’s best summer music festival? Which one represents our city in the best light, gives the most thrills, the biggest bang for your buck?

That last question is often redundant in a city where you can do a whole lotta festing for free. Which brings us to our first contender, the heavyweight champion, which built its name, reputation and world-famous appeal on its free shows: the Montreal International Jazz Festival, where you can walk the site on any given night and take in a globe-trotting array of music without spending a dime, or, if you’re feeling festive, for the price of a beer and a mango on a stick. Fresh off its 45th edition, the jazz fest is hard to beat for the variety of music, the people-watching and its imprint on our city.

Prior to the jazz fest is, of course, the French-language music fête Les Francos de Montréal, and the avant-garde offerings of Suoni Per Il Popolo, put on by the good folks at Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa.

Hot on the heels of the jazz festival is the not-so-hidden gem Nuits d’Afrique. The annual celebration of African and Latin American sounds recently marked 39 years of body-moving rhythms. Nuits d’Afrique has grown in stature since it began setting up shop in the Quartier des spectacles, in part of the same state-of-the-art site as the jazz fest, which makes Montreal the envy of cities everywhere.

The Gazette team is still coming down from the epic 18th........

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