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Jazz a Juan, Part 2

Jazz a Juan 2009 - Jeff Beck on stage © Anthea Gerrie

The tiny, uber-trendy Riviera resort of Juan-les-Pins is resounding to two kinds of culture shock this summer - and only one comes in the form of thousands of volts from an electric guitar.

Jeff Beck introduced real, raw rock'n'roll to Europe's oldest jazz festival when he headlined Jazz a Juan, leading some spectators to wonder if this was really what they had signed up for with their festival season ticket.

Not that Jeff, who succeeded Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds and was voted "guitarists' guitarist" by such luminary colleagues as Dave Gilmour and Brian May, is any stranger to jazz. His rocking rendition of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is, after all, a tribute to Charlie Mingus, his personal jazz hero who happened to play the first ever Jazz a Juan in 1960.

Many chart-toppers have since played this sublime arena in a pinewood dropping gently to the Med - Ray Charles, B.B. King, James Blunt and Phil Collins among them, as well as the greatest names in jazz from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis to Dizzy Gillespie - but the likes of Beck, who blends the boundaries between raw rock and jazz fusion and can torment as well as induce lyricism out of his guitar, have never been seen here before.

Three of the world's greatest bassists - Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten - did their own share of rocking in the first half, but their somewhat mellower improvisations were more in line with a classic festival whose star turn on Saturday night will be many-times-headliner Keith Jarrett

Before that come Brits and more Brits - Joss Stone, who totally blew the audience away with her soul/gospel set, and Jamie Cullum.

Cap d'Antibes' first boutique hotel - Cap d'Antibes Beach Hotel

Beck only stayed to shock for a single night, but locals will be talking for years about the Cap d'Antibes Beach Hotel, the resort's first and only truly contemporary-chic boutique hotel. The choice of undisguised concrete as principal building material is bound to have got tongues wagging - and the fact this stylish French Riviera hotel has been built on the site of one of the resort's most famous nightclubs.

Like Jazz a Juan, the Maison des Pecheurs would have been celebrating its 50th birthday last year, had the owners not decided to replace it with the kind of hotel the resort has sorely lacked. Sophia Loren and Cary Grant once played here in the days when the old fishermen's house was a great club topped by a fine restaurant, but the stars have always stayed down the road at the Belles Rives, once the home of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, or up at Eden Roc, the grand hotel on the adjacent Cap d'Antibes.

Now they have a third choice, since despite its modernity and informality, the Cap d'Antibes Beach Hotel offers true five-star service and the possibility of discretion, complete with private entrances. Mercifully, the Michelin-starred Pecheurs restaurant has been retained, plus a much more casual beach restaurant of the kind the resort is famous for, serving fine food in a very relaxed atmosphere.

I don't mind the textured concrete, which is used with great panache, and the rooms are stylish and comfortable. But the best thing about the hotel is its wonderful massage tents on the seafront near the swimming pool - you can sense the sea and the sounds of beach life while the formidable Karen soothes your muscles and your mind into an altered state.

Before you choose, read what I have written about the Belles Rives itself and the Sainte Valerie - two more fine, but very different, choices in this fabulous little resort.

And remember - you can come here all the way from Britain by train! See Rail Europe for great rail fares.