Don’t you just love New York in June? If you like jazz, there’s simply no other place to be in the whole world. For the next two weeks, every aspect of the music, from the mainstream to the fringes, will be covered by two ambitious festivals that share the city: the JVC Jazz Festival, which sprawls out across the island of Manhattan, and the considerably smaller but no less vital Vision Fest, which is staged in a reformed synagogue on the Lower East Side.

JVC uses the word “jazz” as a wide umbrella. Beneath it, everything from salutes to two iconic (and deceased) swing trumpeters to a pair of big-name urban contemporary pop stars take shelter. Although the Vision conspicuously leaves the word “jazz” out of its title, nearly everything presented in the fest comes out of the improvising jazz tradition.

Between the two simultaneous festivals, there’s surprisingly little conflict; if you prefer your jazz with an experimental, cutting-edge flavor, the place to be, more than ever, is downtown at the Vision Fest. (To get a sample of what the music is like, the festival’s Web site, visionfestival.org, offers streaming audio recorded at previous fests.) If you’re more down the middle in your tastes, doubtless you’ll be heading to one of the many different venues hosting the JVC.

But with so many shows and venues from which to choose, making decisions is harder than ever — I’m sure I’m not the only fan out there who’s having a hard time choosing between superstar pianist Keith Jarrett and a salute to Phoebe Jacobs, one of the great ladies of the jazz business. Luckily, it’s always win-win. With that in mind, I herewith provide you with information and a few suggestions for how to space out your week.

Tuesday, June 19: JVC gets under way with a conflict for lovers of traditional jazz — the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (at Town Hall), which during the last 40 years has established itself as the flagship ensemble for New Orleans jazz, versus a centennial salute to the great trumpeter Jimmy McPartland (Kaye Playhouse), hosted by his wife and musical partner, the amazing 89-year-old piano goddess Marian McPartland. For the McPartland show, a suitably excellent roster of first-rate traditional and swing players have been summoned, among them the guitarist Howard Alden, bassist Bill Crow, drummer Eddie Locke, clarinetists Joe Muranyi and Ken Peplowski, and trombonist Bobby Pring.

The only predictable aspect of Vision Fest is that it always begins with a quasi-religious ceremony called the “Opening Invocation,” and that it always presents several of its strongest groups on the first night: This year, the two biggest opening acts are an extra-large ensemble playing a new work by one of the fest’s founding fathers, the bassist-composer William Parker, and the quartet Spiritual Unity, which features three well-known quantities in guitarist Marc Ribot, trumpeter Roy Campbell, and bassist Henry Grimes.

Wednesday, June 20: For the second straight night at JVC, the Kaye will salute a great premodern trumpeter-cornetist: the iconic and iconoclastic Ruby Braff. That performance will go head-to-head against the powerful two-tenor tandem of Branford Marsalis and Joshua Redman at Town Hall. Although Messrs. Marsalis and Redman are awesome, the announced saxists at Kaye, Harry Allen and Scott Hamilton, aren’t slouches either — and unlike Messrs. Marsalis and Redman, they are likely to play together.

The Kaye has also announced two excellent trumpeters, Warren Vache and Jon-Erik Kellso, with more on the way. The various rhythm players honoring Ruby, nearly all of whom worked with him — including Norman Simmons, Dick Hyman, George Wein, Jon Wheatley, Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, Frank Tate, Chuck Riggs, Daryl Sherman & Jackie Williams — are also key attractions.

Meanwhile, at Vision, another legendary trumpeter gets his props. The man of the hour (and this year’s “Lifetime Recognition” recipient) is the trumpeter-composer Bill Dixon, who may be the single most challenging musician I’ve ever heard (that’s meant as a compliment, but you can take it any way you wish). Mr. Dixon will also preside over an orchestralsized ensemble, which will be followed by an all-star small group, Co-Pilots, with Mr. Grimes, the pianist Marilyn Crispell, and the drummer Rashied Ali.

Thursday, June 21: My heart is with Ms. Jacobs at the Kaye, but, alas, I am duty-bound to cover Mr. Jarrett at Carnegie. Ms. Jacobs was a close personal and professional associate of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, and many other greats; thus any show featuring artists of her choice is bound to be a winner. This may also be the most promising night of the year for interesting performers not usually presented at JVC, such as singers Antoinette Montague and Carolyn Leonhart, ragtimer Terry Waldo, dancers Mercedes Ellington and Andre De Shields, plus swinging stalwarts Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski, and Jon Faddis.

As for Mr. Jarrett’s concert, certain aspects are inevitable: He will begin with a catty opening remark calculated to maintain his bad boy image; he will contort his body in strange and bizarre ways as he plays; the sound (like all jazz performances at Carnegie) will be inaudible in various parts of the room, but the music of this flawless trio will be nothing less than brilliant.

The most interesting act at Vision is what appears to be an Ornette Coleman spinoff unit titled Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, led by Mr. Coleman’s first wife, with his son Denardo Coleman on drums and Prime Time guitarist Bern Nix. The large ensemble for the night is flautist Nicole Mitchell’s nine-piece Black Earth Ensemble, and there are also chamber groups led by two downtown stars: saxist Tim Berne and violinist Jason Kao Hwang.

Friday, June 22: The first of two nights of R&B-pop stars at Carnegie spotlights the celebrated India. Arie (the only woman I know of with a dot in the middle of her name), preceded by the constantly evolving young vocalist Lizz Wright. In the West Village, the Rubin Museum will present the wonderful duo of pianist Vijay Iyer and alto saxist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who are known together as Raw Materials even though they are highly polished. Earlier this year, their performance piece of pop criticism at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, “Still Life With Commentator,” was warmly received.

Downtown at Vision, this looks to be an essential night, much of which will be dedicated to the great free jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins, who, sadly, left us a few months ago. The evening will kick off with a 50-fiddle salute to Jenkins, led by Billy Bang and coordinated by Jason Kao Hwang, and wind up with keyboardist Myra Melford’s “Spindrift for Leroy Jenkins,” in which the featured fiddler is Charles Burnham.

In the meantime, there are groups led by trumpeter Roy Campbell and tenorist Fred Anderson and a dance-art performance by festival founder Patricia Nicolson, not to mention a solo piano set by the outstanding Matthew Shipp.

Saturday, June 23: The sole offering at JVC is the hitmaker Patti LaBelle, whose opening act is the steadfast blues-and-bebop giant Lou Donaldson, a musician to whom I could listen every night of my life.

Contrastingly, this is another very big night at Vision, and a big afternoon too, since between 2 p.m. and dinner, four emerging ensembles will be presented, the first of which, bassist Michael Bisio’s quartet, features the fine saxist Avram Fefer.

The evening show at Vision begins with the formidable postmodern trio led by the Israel-based, Russian-born pianist Vyacheslav Ganelin, who, in the final days of the Soviet Union, dazzled audiences worldwide with the amazing level of interplay in his original Ganelin Trio of the 1980s. This will be followed by a unit fronted by three veterans of the early years of free jazz — trumpeter-leader Eddie Gale, and saxists Prince Lasha and Kidd Jordan. Also on the bill is a quartet led by saxist Rob Brown, a trio led by drummer Whit Dickey, and a presentation of avant-garde jazz, poetry, and dance centered around the poet Amiri Baraka.

Sunday, June 24: The only show at JVC is one I wouldn’t miss: the four hands and two pianos of Kenny Barron and Eliane Elias (produced by Jazz Forum Arts), with a rhythm section of Marc Johnson, Satoshi Takeishi, and Freddie Bryant, in a setting (the Allen Room) where the music should be as lovely as the room. Meanwhile, back down on Norfolk Street, the Vision Fest will conclude with a typically atypical evening, featuring an avant-garde string quartet (T.E.C.K. String 4tet) and a vocalist (Thomas Buckner), plus such familiar and welcome figures as drummer-leaders Hamid Drake and Louis Moholo, cellist Daniel Levin and Vision Perennial, saxist Roscoe Mitchell of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

The Vision Fest should wind up with a bang, but then it also opens with one and promises to keep right on banging all the way through.

wfriedwald@nysun.com