It’s the biggest party weekend in the calendar.

Whether you religiously hit the music trail, or just amble around town soaking up the atmosphere, the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival is back this October… with a brilliant new opening event that’s sure to please everyone.

For the first time ever, the weekend will kick off with a ‘Dia De Los Muertos’ Jazz Parade.

Taking place on Thursday evening, October 25th, the colourful spectacle will wind through the streets of Cork, bringing with it the alluring dance of the macabre.

The deadly display, a nod to Mexico’s famous ‘Day of the Dead’ Parade, will include street performers and floats from Cork City Art Link in a New Orleans funeral procession with live musicians paying homage to the greatest artists of jazz now gone from this world.

And the excitement is only beginning.

The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival line-up for 2018 features Grammy award-winning Maria Schneider and her Orchestra for their first-ever Irish appearance, the legendary Blind Boys of Alabama, celebrated US Jazz singer and composer Nnenna Freelon, UK soul songstress Laura Mvula, Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble as well as Stanley Clarke, Billy Childs Ensemble, Billy Cobham, Fred Hersch, T.S. Monk, Donny McCaslin, Belfast’s jazz evangelist Linley Hamilton, Frank Vignola’s Hot Jazz Trio and Pablo Ziegler Trio… with dozens more acts yet to be announced.

If that doesn’t make you want to get your jazz on for the weekend, nothing will.