Now in its 28^th year, the annual festival will be a blockbuster, spearheaded by the likes of Ian Moss, Spiderbait, Katie Noonan, Jon Cleary and Lucky Oceans. 

More than 300 musicians will perform more than 80 concerts across a jam-packed weekend from Friday November 3.

Festival co-artistic director Adam Simmons said this year's lineup was a strong blend of local and international acts.

“This is Australia's foremost festival of jazz and blues and celebrates Australian music in an international context,” he said.

“The 2017 lineup is a testament to this.”

To go with the aforementioned iconic Australian acts, international performers Jon Cleary (New Orleans), Christian Scott (USA) and the Kari Ikonen Trio (Finland) will form part of a string overseas contingent.

Australian jazz legend James Morrison will perform alongside Paul Grabowsky and Spiderbait's Kram in improvised trio The Others, while Perth-based musician Lucky Oceans will make his eastern Australian debut in Wangaratta.

The first Jazz and Blues festival was held in 1990 and spearheaded by a group of locals as a way to bring tourists to the north-east, and has since grown into an internationally-renowned event.

It attracts around 20,000 visitors each year.

Simmons said the festival was an important chance for Wangaratta musicians to rub shoulders with internationally acclaimed acts.

“One of the things I love most about the Wangaratta festival is that it places Australian music in an international context,” he said.

“We started with a wishlist with some big names on it when we were putting the lineup together – fortunately we got lucky with acts like Jon Cleary and Christian Scott.

“It wasn’t about just putting on a bunch of great bands – we wanted to create a balance and hopefully foster collaborations between local and international acts.

“We were also conscious of making sure there were emerging artists on the bill, as well as established ones.

“One of the benefits of having a couple of artists on the selection panel was that they had some awareness of what people were doing with regard to new projects.

“We knew there were quite a few things coming up that were on the radar, because of that we were able to encourage a few things to happen.”