Scott McLennan

You’ll find titans such as sax player Joe Lovano playing on the Harbor Stage and the legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette celebrating his 70th birthday with an all-star band on the Quad Stage, while young gun Darcy James Argue brings his Secret Society big band to the main stage.

Something new was truly under way in Copley Square Friday night when the inaugural Boston Summer Arts Weekend took off.

McCoury and Preservation Hall Jazz Band team up again Friday as part of the Boston Summer Arts Weekend. “Collaboration” is the buzz word at this new arts festival, as it lays the groundwork for artists to get involved in each others’ sets.

The hallmark of the Lowell festival, now in its 26th year, is its ability to show how wide the definition of folk music stretches.

The Soul Rebels will blow you away, and not just because the group features six horns. Rather it’s the band’s radical gumbo of New Orleans brass band music mixed with hip-hop, soul, and funk that is lighting up all sorts of musical camps.