In an antique marquee with wood-panelling and mirrored walls in the town square of Coutances (pop. 9,000), British jazz musician Andy Sheppard is cooking up a storm. Next to him a Michelin-starred chef is – literally – cooking too.

As Sheppard’s alto saxophone reaches a climax, the chef completes his foie gras poele aux asperges vertes – and presents it with a flourish to an admiring audience.

Welcome to Jazz et Cuisine, a thoroughly Gallic dish in Jazz Sous Les Pommiers, an eight-day festival held amid the pastures and cider orchards of rural Normandy every May.

In Britain jazz festivals – although there are lots of them – tend to be niche affairs held far from the gaze of a media much more interested in Glastonbury, Reading and wherever Amy Winehouse is due to fall over next.

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France is different; here you can see grannies, courting couples, teenagers turning out for Branford Marsalis, Ahmad Jamal and a cavalcade of British and continental players.

This is a festival that punches way over its weight. Running for 28 years, the event overlooked by the spires of the vast hilltop cathedral, now features 50 concerts with more than 30,000 tickets sold. It helps that the local mayor is keen on the arts and that this small town possesses a 600-seat theatre that resembles the Queen Elizabeth Hall inside.

A sports hall seating 1,400 takes the biggest acts. Three hundred local people run the event, 200 of them volunteers. Crowds are mostly local, or from Rennes or Rouen. Some come from Paris, four hours drive away. There’s a smattering of English voices, too. It's all a bit like having Van Morrison in your village hall.

If you tire of the music – and this year saw jazz, blues, world and gospel, with some terrific free events – there are other charms – including the food. Stalls sell six oysters for five euros, local cider is 2 euros. There are plump merguez sausages and, inevitably, a pizza stand – except here the pizza is rolled out and cooked in front of you.

The coast is only 10 kilometres away, promising more oysters, with eyefuls of verdant countryside in between. And here’s another cultural contrast, for the sporting, there’s a courir sous les pommiers fun run – in Britain the words jazz and keep-fit are rarely heard in the same sentence.

But people come here primarily for the music and to party. Late at night under trees strung with lights the crowds linger. It’s shaming to say it, but well-refreshed French are far more congenial company than boozed Brits. There are no football chants, no kebabs underfoot and no one rolling in the gutter.

A few genial gendarmes lurk on the sidelines and, at 1am, there’s a pristine, manned loo open on the walk home. The organisers seem to have thought of everything.

The French would like to see more British here. The easiest way to travel is by car using a ferry from Portsmouth or Cherbourg to Caen. Non-drivers need initiative. Ryanair run flights from Stansted to Dinard (my journey out cost a princely 6 euros), but then you’ll need to take a coach and then a train to nearby Carentan.

You can also go by Eurostar to Paris then change. But it’s worth the journey for an event that has been quietly putting on world-class music for nearly three decades. If there was a motorway turn-off by the main stage something would be lost.

Oh, and the name, Jazz sous les pommiers? Only on this point are the organisers a little embarrassed. While there are lots of pommiers (apple trees) in the region, Coutances appears to have only one, an unassuming specimen outside the theatre. Still it looks good on the posters.

More information

www.jazzsouslespommiers.com

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