Mike Heron & Trembling Bells, on tour

The maverick will always find a soft landing with Trembling Bells. A free-ranging folk rock band which accommodates the operatically inclined vocals of Lavinia Blackwall and the free jazz drumming of Alex Neilson, the Bells have in their time provided empathetic backing for the likes of Bonnie "Prince" Billy, while Neilson has played with one of the most ad hoc musicians of them all, the mysterious Jandek. At the moment, they are performing a similar service for Mike Heron, who in his Incredible String Band days initiated free-roaming "freak folk".

Barrel House, Totnes, Sat; The Blind Tiger Club, Brighton, Sun; Chapel Arts Centre, Bath, Mon; St John The Evangelist, Oxford, Tue; Manchester Academy, Wed; Oran Mór, Glasgow, Fri

JR

Open East Festival, London

After victorious scenes at the Olympic Park last year, the place is now transforming itself into a must-visit entertainment complex, playing host to triumphant displays of a different kind. The Open East festival is a come-all-ye event to help get things under way. On the main stage Mike Scott's Waterboys celebrate the 25-year anniversary of their much-admired celtic rock milestone Fisherman's Blues, while punk minimalists Wire continue their third reincarnation. Seun Kuti delivers Afrobeat, fronting his father Fela's band, Egypt 80. There's also a great lineup of east African stars: appearances by Vieux Farka Touré, Fatoumata Diawara and Amadou And Mariam.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E17, Sat & Sun

JR

Eyehategod, Bristol, Sheffield & Glasgow

There can't have been too many people who imagined that Eyehategod would make it to their 25th anniversary. A band in the grand tradition of Black Sabbath's downtuned swing, Eyehategod walked it like they talked it, with a fondness for nihilism and drug culture. But the road back from excess reignited the band. In 2005, lead singer Mike Williams was imprisoned for possession of a good deal of prescription drugs but detoxed behind bars, inspiring guitarist Jimmy Bower to do the same. If the lifestyles have changed, rest assured that their bleak outlook and feedback-laced heaviosity are very far from reformed.

The Fleece, Bristol, Wed; Ivory Blacks, Glasgow, Thu; Corporation, Sheffield, Fri; and on tour

JR

Matthew Halsall Sextet, GoGo Penguin, Manchester

This double bill is a fitting highlight for the excellent annual Manchester jazz festival. The energetic young piano trio GoGo Penguin emerged as a hot ticket across the UK circuit last year after graduating from the local scene, and Matthew Halsall is a key figure in Manchester music as an original trumpeter/composer, record-label boss and mentor to up-and-coming locals. Indeed, his Gondwana Records signed GoGo Penguin, a creative threesome who cite Aphex Twin, Debussy and Massive Attack among their influences, but whose jazz identity is strongly inflected by EST and The Bad Plus. They can be hauntingly reflective and impressionistic, while reflectiveness is the watchword for Matthew Halsall, whose own work combines 1960s modal-jazz freedoms with the meditative music of the late Alice Coltrane, thanks to the presence of fine harpist Rachael Gladwin.

Band On The Wall, Manchester, Thu

JF

Pharoah Sanders, Edinburgh, London & Manchester

Ever since he got the call to join John Coltrane in the 1960s, the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders has been showing the world that jazz-making for him means the search for transcendental moods rather than theme-and-variations on tunes. Sanders emits an impassioned, elemental roar that is one of the most distinctive sax sounds in the music, and – as with his iconoclastic contemporary Ornette Coleman and the late Albert Ayler – it was a gut-feeling approach that made him a controversial figure in his early career. With the acid-jazz boom of the early 1990s, Sanders unexpectedly found himself reinvented as a purveyor of hypnotic dancefloor soul-jazz anthems, and today the 72-year-old is a more restrained and rounded performer of standard songs and blues as well as classics from the Coltrane legacy.

3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh, Sun; Ronnie Scott's, W1, Mon & Tue; Royal College Of Music, Manchester, Wed

JF

The Song Of Hiawatha, Gloucester

When his long-lost opera Thelma was staged for the first time last year there was much excitement, but Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is still one of the forgotten figures of Edwardian music. Yet between the world wars his cantata-trilogy The Song Of Hiawatha, based upon Longfellow's poems, was one of the staples of the English choral repertory. Now, performances of the evening-long work are rare, so the Three Choirs festival's decision to revive it this year is an act of faith. Peter Nardone conducts, with soloists Hye-Youn Lee, Robin Tritschler and Benedict Nelson.

Gloucester Cathedral, Thu

AC