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Acts in this year's New Mexico Jazz Festival range from Sonny Rollins, the undisputed master of the tenor sax, to Toumani Diabate, the acknowledged king of the kora, a 21-string lute-like instrument.

Jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves, a four-time Grammy winner, is part of the lineup, but so are Gospel Music Hall of Fame greats the Mighty Clouds of Joy.

Clarinet player Eddie Daniels is working the festival with his New York Quintet, and bass player Richard Bona, originally from East Cameroon in Africa, is performing with his 10-piece band.

That's such a wide array of styles and talent it is difficult to discern any sort of focus in the second New Mexico Jazz Festival, which features concerts in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

"Our focus is the top artists in jazz and beyond," said Tom Guralnick, whose Outpost Productions in Albuquerque is presenting the festival in collaboration with the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Jazz Foundation.

The New Mexico Jazz Workshop and the city of Albuquerque are also supporting partners.

As far as musical styles go, Guralnick said the festival can afford to be — even needs to be — eclectic in its tastes.

"Toumani Diabate has done a lot of cross-cultural work," Guralnick said. "He recorded a duet album with Taj Mahal. He has played Carnegie Hall and festivals all over this country. He is one of the biggies in the world music movement."

But what about the jazz movement?

"The roots of jazz are in African and African-American music," Guralnick said. "That's why we have the Mighty Clouds of Joy. They were big stars of the gospel world in the '60s and '70s, one of the screaming, high-energy groups."

Reeves is the vocal heir of jazz greats such as Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter. She won her fourth Grammy for "Good Night, and Good Luck," an album of 1950s-flavored jazz that is the soundtrack of the 2005 movie of the same title. Reeves appeared on screen, singing the songs in the movie about TV broadcaster Edward R. Murrow.

"She is recognized as one of the great contemporary women of jazz," Guralnick said. "For the festival, she's going to be doing her `Strings Attached' concert with guitarists Russell Malone and Romero Lubambo."

Bona, who started performing publicly in his East Cameroon village church when he was 5, sings and plays bass.

Michel Camilo, who performs with his trio at the Lensic on Thursday, is a skilled pianist from the Dominican Republic who has mastered both classical and jazz music.

"He is outstanding technically," Guralnick said of Camilo.

So is Daniels, who now makes his home in Santa Fe.

Also a virtuoso in both classical and jazz music, Daniels first garnered public acclaim in the late Õ60s as a tenor sax player performing with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra Monday evenings at the Village Vanguard in New York.

But after a clarinet solo on the Jones-Lewis Orchestra's 1967 "Live at the Village Vanguard" album, Daniels became known as a jazz clarinetist.

Guralnick said the festival is bigger this year than it was last year, giving fans the chance to pick and choose.

"Last year, we had only one major concert in Albuquerque," Guralnick said. "This year we have three — Rollins, Bona and Toumani Diabate."

He said the symbiotic relationship between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is working to the advantage of the festival in that Albuquerque provides larger venues and Santa Fe offers the legendary allure of that city.

"I think this will become the next great destination festival in New Mexico," he said.