NEXT week's Marlborough International Jazz Festival will be bigger and better than ever before and follow a new format, said organiser Nick Fogg.

This year there will be no individual concert tickets for the three days of jazz from July 9 to 11. Every event will be included in the festival's unique Stroller tickets.

The £17 Friday Stroller tickets will admit holders to every event in the town that evening while a Saturday Stroller tickets will cost £20 if booked in advance or £22 on the day.

Combi tickets that cover Friday and Saturday's concerts in about 30 venues in the town will cost £35. Admission to Sunday's events will be £15 all in.

Missing from this year's line-up are headline stars like Jools Holland, Elkie Brookes and Wiltshire's own Jamie Cullum.

Cullum was unable to get along to the Marlborough festival last year and the year before although he had been expected and now, said Mr Fogg, he is simply outpriced.

However the festival programme is littered with the names of performers who are big in the jazz world including a couple of up and coming singers who, like Cullum, have recently struck major recording deals.

These include Clare Teal, who has become virtually the resident vocalist on The Parkinson Show, and Gwyn Herbert, who recently signed a record deal reportedly worth £1 million.

Another top newcomer making her first appearance at the festival will be Brazilian-born pianist-vocalist Eliane Elias, winner of two Grammy Awards. She will be travelling from her home in New York to appear with her quartet in Marlborough.

Also appearing for the first time at Marlborough will be the Hot Club of Kowtow, a cross-over country-jazz band that has been taking their native America by storm.

On top of the new acts at the festival there will loads of old favourites. A perpetual favourite at Marlborough is veteran trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, 83, who will be appearing with his band on Sunday evening in the Withy King Marquee in the Priory Gardens.

Other favourites returning will be Pete Allen with his Jazz Band, the Sticky Wickett Big Band, Steve 'Big Man' Clayton, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, the Brasshoppers and the Slaughterhouse Seven from Downside School at Bath led by the irrepressible Kevin Byrne from Pewsey.

Mr Fogg said the festival was lucky to have secured the London Community Gospel Band for a second year and said one of the highlights would be Marlborough's community choir singing with Zulu band Mbawula.

The festival will open at 6pm on July 9 outside the Castle and Ball Hotel with the Township Sisters from Soweto in South Africa.