Why? It's because at the top of the town, on the hillside overlooking the red-tiled roofs and sloping streets, the ancient Roman "Theatre Antique" bears witness to the passing centuries--and provides the incredibly atmospheric setting for Vienne's annual Jazz Festival. Where every year some of the best-known musicians in the world play to one of the most responsive audiences they could hope to find. And it is an event that should be embossed in gold in every music-lover's diary.

This year's festival opened last Friday, the last day of June, with an unforgettable evening: a summer sky filled with wheeling swifts and swallows and the slowly falling sun streaking the sky with burning blood... in the Roman amphitheatre, its every ledge, every step and stone, every standing place filled with summer-clad people, the most daring even perched on the rocky outcrops of the hillside itself. People crowing every possible vantage or listening point - even the two elderly ladies who were leaning from their powder-blue-shuttered window, watching the people searching for places to sit or stand, clutching their cushions and water bottles and cans of beer and fistfulls of popcorn and hot-merguez-dogs or kebabs from the smoking barbeques. Streets full of people heading for the already-full amphitheatre and breathing the bubbling air of anticipation and clapping, whistling, cheering and singing.

If you sit high on the stone terraces of this Roman theatre, you can see beyond the covered stage, over the rooftops to the hills beyond. A bend in the river shimmers between the buildings. The birds sing. Cicadas zip and zap and whirr on the wooded hillside and there is a tranquility that makes time and century irrelevant. You understand why Vienne was was built, and you understand why it remains. It feels like home.

Down below, the first engineers to walk on stage were given the sort of reception usually reserved for the star of the show--the audience stood and cheered, ready for the show. And then Maceo Parker, master showman himself, walked onto the stage, and the whole filled-to-the-seams amphitheatre erupted. The festival had started!

And the show had opened on time - even a couple of minutes early. "Now we're going to get funky" Maceo's theme... within minutes the entire audience was singing, "Shake everything you've got, shake everything you've got, shake everything...", the trombonist Fred Wesley being the lead rabble-rouser, hanging pure brass on the evening air. Maceo's sax and Fred's trombone worked a real magic, with organist Will Boulware contributing an equally alchemic touch. The crowd was alight. "I need some money!" "I need some mo----ney!!!" And then back to "Shake everything you've got!" Funky rhythm-and-blues, music from Maceo's album "Southern Exposure", and a few reminders that his hero and mentor James Brown was to follow later in the evening - but it was obvious from the quality of Maceo's music and the energetic response of the audience that he was truly the star of his own show, without a hint of anyone else's shadow. The strong backing of rhythm guitar, drums and percussion and the excellent sax and trombone combined with the vocals into a solid, energizing blast of music that must have had even the long-retired Romans dancing. I thought I heard the bones rattling as the centurians shook everything they had left...

Then a pause, an interval of half-an-hour while the stage was readied for James Brown. Impatience on the terraces. More shouting and cheering. Someone in the audience playing a haunting trumpet that caught the last rays of the blood-orange setting sun that was sliding into the cleft between two hills. The aroma of fresh popcorn and rapidly-melting ice-cream. And then a group of energetic fans on one side and half-way-up the theatre attempted to start a "hola", a Mexican wave that snakes around the audience, more usually seen in a football stadium than at any sort of concert, and certainly not a native French phenomenon. The wave travelled a quarter of the way around the semi-circular ranks. The initiating group boo-ed and hissed, then tried again. It worked! And for ten minutes or so, wave after Mexican wave washed over the Roman stones. Would anyone have any energy left for cheering? Dancing? You bet!

The sky had darkened. James Brown's band appeared, piece by piece, player by player. First the musicians, dressed like bellhops from an expensive hotel. Then six female singers, black sheathed and spangled, shimmering and sparkling under the lights. And the group of dancers. Each part of the team performing their own piece, introducing and building up to the entrance of the great, infamous, one-and-only James Brown. The set-up was reminiscent of a variety show from the late 1960's - lots and lots of pzazz and fizz, keeping the audience guessing, just when will he appear on stage? Is he really here???

And then there he was, clad in a suit the colour of a teenybopper's lipstick, the sort of red that would flood a television screen: the great musical icon, the inspiration of so many musicians, a symbol of black hope. The man whose name had sold-out this show: whom over eight thousand people had come to see on this hot, heady summer night.

And he can still rouse the crowd. He can still wriggle his trousers - perhaps not as fluidly as in years gone by, perhaps not for quite as long, but he can still do it. He can still play tricks with the microphone. And when he sang "This is a man's world", he proved without a doubt that he could still reduce an audience to near-tears...

One of his singers, classically-trained Amy Christian, sang a wonderfully raunchy blues. She was magnificent. I'd like to hear more.

Musically and energetically, Maceo Parker's smaller band outshone James Brown's high-production, twenty-man-and-woman team of musicians, singers and dancers. Especially at the end of the evening, when both Maceo and Fred returned to the stage to party-party-party with James. But the Sex Machine had once more worked his legendary charm and left his mark on each and every member of the audience, young (and there were many of them) and old alike. One day we'll be telling our grandchildren about the night we saw James Brown at Vienne - without a doubt.

What would the Romans have said? What would they have done? They invented central heating and plumbing. Pity they didn't invent themselves a time machine. I think they would have enjoyed this...

Saturday... and the sun had been roaring down all day. Hot, heavy and humid. But by seven o'clock in the evening the sky was covered, as grey and wrinkled as an elephant's hide. Then the first rumbles of thunder. And the scent of rain. The promise of a summer storm... and oh, what a storm! The clouds burst open and just dropped out a flood. It didn't stop. We huddled into the small cafes or sheltered under umbrellas and folded newspapers, eyeing the sky and willing it to stop. But it didn't. It didn't even slow down. It didn't even _think_ about slowing down. It just continued to pour warm summer rain down the backs of our necks and in waterfalls through the streets. Everyone dashed to the amphitheatre at the last moment, hoping to stay dry, just for a few minutes more--and once again the theatre was filled to capacity. A sea of multi-coloured umbrellas and waterproofs. Those of us who had travelled in the heat of the afternoon, unprepared for the storm, expecting at most a short, sharp clearing of the air and the return of the sun immediately after, we invested in "Vienne Jazz" plastic ponchos and sat safe inside our own private saunas, steaming in the warm-but-wet air.

Saturday night - this year at Vienne, the night of the guitars. The ever-evolving John McLaughlin to be followed by flamenco-jazz star Paco de Lucia. John arrived on stage--tonight, his trio "Free Spirit", with Dennis Chambers on drums and Joey de Francesco on organ. "Is it still raining?" John asked. "Oui!" we replied, emphatically. "John, it's PISSING it down," I wanted to say. It's raining on my sandwiches and I'm sitting in a puddle and there's a river running over my feet. But it's all worth while!

In this his latest incarnation, John McLaughlin is playing his own brand of electrical, be-bopping jazz, posing like a seventies rock star; Free Spirit cycling through solo after solo. Whatever and whenever John plays, it makes anyone who has ever picked up a guitar wonder if their own hands are equipped with toes instead of fingers: his virtuosity is stunning, his playing is impeccable and his mastery unquestionable. Towards the end of the set everyone was cheering and standing to applaud the second he touched a string--and with each instrumentalist's solos gaining loud appreciation from the colourful umbrella-waving crowd, this meant a lot of standing-and-cheering. The view from the stage must have been stunning. A hillside rainbow of happiness.

However... I have to say that missed the acoustic sound. I yearned for the soulfulness of the guitar-and-piano duets he once played with Katia Labeque. I waited for the mystical Indian influence and the integration of different instruments and all those different musical styles. And I hoped he would play a number or two with Paco de Lucia again... but it didn't happen. Not this time.

John told us that the organ was the "sound of today", and that Joey de Francesco was the star of the show. I'm glad he mentioned it, because I would never have guessed. While I recognized that Joey was an excellent keyboard player and an inspirational musician, I found the sound of that particular organ overpowering: drowning the rest of the music not by its volume but by its very nature. It reminded me of British Working Mens Clubs and cheap day-trips to Blackpool. Perhaps that is what John intended? I don't know... and I don't know if the rest of the audience were applauding Joey's solos because they appreciated them as much as they enjoyed John's playing or as they enthused over the incredibly energetic drumming of Dennis Chambers (who had his own set of drumskin- clutching fans in the audience), or if they, like me, were celebrating the return of John to centre stage. (After the show, the local radio did comment that "the organist played with his keyboard a little too much"!)

At the end of the set, yet another standing ovation, yet more cheers from the full-throated crowd. More! Come back!! More? No...

The rain stopped during the interval. John's band quickly packed away. Their next concert to be in Istanbul, Turkey. Dennis had enjoyed drumming in the rain. I imagine he did. The man must have used up more energy than the Tour de France on the Alpine stretch. Amazing.

And then Paco de Lucia, with his clan of musicians: Pepe de Lucia singing like a gypsy hero, Jorge Pardo playing really wistful and haunting flute, Ramon de Algeciras and Juan Manuel Canizares on guitar and some powerful percussion from Rubem Dantas. A melange of traditional flamenco and jazz, this concert leaning more towards flamenco than improvisation: and then the lithe-and-strutting dancing of Joaquin Grilo! Like a bird of paradise parading before a dowdy female, he teased and thrilled the audience until we were ready to fall at his feet and be trodden down by his sharp-and-shiny shoes. Like a pouting pigeon he made his moves and displayed his feathers, then disappeared from view faster than a flying wing. Then reappeared and entranced us all once more. While Paco played with fiery bursts of Spanish fever. The night grew hot and the rain was forgotten in a haze of midnight magic...

And when it was all over, the crowd wouldn't let them go. Standing ovations, one after the other. Stamping and clapping. Shouting and whistling and cheering. Even after all the encores, even when the engineers were packing away the set until the next night. Even when we were slowly filtering from the Theatre Ancienne and down the narrow streets through the town. Even into the bars for the late-night-early-morning concerts, or during the long drive home in the early hours. Still shouting and calling for more. Hands bruised from clapping. Voices hoarse from shouting.

I was surprised and pleased by Maceo Parker. James Brown gave what I'd expected - no more and no less. Paco de Lucia brought along an unexpected treat in the form of Joaquin Grilo. And I believe that the audience gave something in return, for performances like these are a sharing of dreams and energy, a passing backwards-and-forwards of the music--and the enthusiasm and appreciation at Vienne must impart a trust and energy to the performers. But now, two days after the first four concerts, after the glitter has lost a little of its sparkle and some of the excitement has trickled away, it is John McLaughlin who remains centre-stage in my mind's eye: spilling and spraying a liquid sound into the pouring rain, spinning sharp dreams on a chord: with lightning as his backdrop, streaking from the dark sky to the black hills. His music touches somewhere very deep--and I will be back to listen again, whenever I get the chance, whoever his partners-of-the-moment happen to be, whether he's playing Beethoven or be-bop, boogie-woogie or blues.

During these two hour shows, while I arrogantly feel that I saw and heard practically the whole of James Brown's genius, I know that I just glimpsed one small corner of John McLaughlin's.

Anyway, what would the Romans have thought?