Tim Reinert has just talked himself out of one job and into a new life—and as local lovers of improvised music all know, talking is something that the affable concert promoter does well. Many will remember him as the pork-pie-hatted host of countless Coastal Jazz and Blues Society shows, charming sometimes unruly audiences and setting them up for much of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival’s most audacious music. More recently, Reinert created and programmed the Infidels podcast, which continues to spread the gospel of creative music throughout the wilderness of the internet.

Vancouver’s newest jazz festival doesn’t have a lineup built to fill arenas — it will, however, fill a void in the city’s cultural identity.

VanJazz will host crazy free jazz, big band jazz, video game jazz — but no matter the style or area of the world it comes from, jazz is always going to be the festival’s priority.

Weeds and Reinert didn’t just invite people to be a small part of the festival. “We are making sure that tiny little club shows at Meo Chinatown, where there’s only three people in the band, get as much focus as when Cory leads his big band at Fabrique,” said Reinert.

“I feel very proud of that,” Weeds said. “It’s a jazz festival in the true sense of the word.”