Still Walking is:

A festival of walking taking place across Birmingham, 15th March – 1st April 2012. Artists, architects, historians, ramblers and lovers will show you the city in a new a light

The programme’s now online and features all sorts of tours by all sorts of people across much of the city centre. Very interesting it looks too.

Moseley Folk Festival from junction15 on Vimeo.

I’ve got nothing to base this on particularly, but something tells me that the Shout Festival has been growing year on year. Is that right? I’m not sure what it is – maybe it’s something about the programme or the list of partner organisations involved. Maybe, heading into its third year, it’s something to do with a natural maturing and putting down of roots. Hmm. Thoughts welcomed – I could be well off on this.

Anyway, the 2011 programme is online and the festival starts at the beginning of November.

And this one’s by Leodensian:

That’ll be Hannah from Boat To Row playing her last show with the band. A good gig to go out on.

Here’s a video from IAmBirmingham

There’s some more on the website and loads more on the Facebook Page too.

Espirito Brum is the UK edition of Espirito Mundo, a cross cultural celebration bringing together musicians from Brazil and Birmingham, in a three day festival that forms the first stage in a ongoing global exchange.

This’ll run from 14-18 September and will have contributions from an impressive roster of organisations:

Espirito Brum is a collaboration between Espirito Mundo, Instituto Quorum (Espirito Santo, Brazil), Magpie Brown, Friction Arts, Spotted Dog, Oya Batucada, South Birmingham College and PST. It receives creative support from Marketing Birmingham, 7 Inch Cinema, Punch Records and Shakti Women.

On the subject of exotic festivals, I didn’t make it down to Jamaica Live on Saturday but, judging by the photo I’ve been sent by Ammo from Punch, I must’ve been in the minority.

First up is Simmer Down on 16 July in Handsworth Park.

Featuring Ken Boothe! I like him, especially his covers of Is It Because I’m Black and You Keep Me Hanging On.

Then on 23 July as part of the Open Weekend shenanigans there’s Jamaica Live (which I think was orinally called Jamaica Raw) in Victoria Square.

Ostensibly welcoming the Jamaican Olympic team to Birmingham, this one will feature Levi Roots and other chefs, the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra, Steel Pulse and Monique.

I’m posting this not least because Kingstanding hardly ever gets a mention on CiB. The folks at Frilly have a bit more info and a bigger version of the flyer.

I didn’t make it to CoCoMAD but I did get down to the Friday of Mostly Jazz. It was lovely – nice atmosphere if you can handle a concentrated dose of Moseleyness, some good music and an utterly charming setting. There’s a much better review by The Baron over on The Hearing Aid.

There are a few photos on Flickr but most of them are from Fiona Cullinan, who I saw running about with her camera, so here’s a slideshow from her Mostly Jazz set:

In other jazz news, the Birmingham International Jazz Festival is on until Sunday with all sorts of things happening all over the place.

TheBrumReaper has some photos from this years festival and from past ones too: