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Excited music lovers, exhausted organizers and bleary-eyed writers were all over the map this weekend as they tried to single out his or her favourite moments of the 24th annual Montreal International Jazz Festival, which ended yesterday. The festival, which seems to get more eclectic and broader-reaching by the year, had them all scrambling for superlatives as they tried to make some sense of the marathon that began 11 days and a musical lifetime ago with a dixieland celebration and was set to end only hours ago with guitarist Jimmy Johnson's blues riffs.

There were celebrity sightings - Leonardo DiCaprio hiding under a cap in a loge seat at Biréli Lagrène's tribute to Django Reinhardt and showing up at the Wilco show with Ethan Hawke. Ray Liotta also turned up backstage at the Elvis Costello show, with Jack Kerouac's niece Christine looking on. Costello, in turn, was ushered into sax legend Lee Konitz's dressing room by Montreal's walking jazz encyclopedia, Len Dobbin, who announced the British singer's arrival with a casual "Hey, Lee - Elvis is here." Costello's upcoming album, North, features Konitz.

There was also a near-tragedy when drummer Jack DeJohnette's car was wrecked as he approached the Canadian border on the festival's opening day. While DeJohnette was not injured, festival driver Mike Darby said the musician seemed shaken, even days later. When a journalist wished the musician a safe trip home, DeJohnette was seen taking a deep breath and rolling his eyes.

As always, though, most people were talking music. And if their recaps had anything like a common foundation, it was probably only the fact that it was physically impossible for any of them to catch all 500 indoor and outdoor shows that were offered during the 11-day festival.

André Ménard, the festival's co-founder and artistic director, picked pianist Egberto Gismonti's solo performance as a high point, along with Konitz's shows, Lagrène's homage to Reinhardt and Bobby McFerrin's concert. "We expected something special, but (McFerrin) surpassed all expectations," Ménard said.

Programming co-ordinator Johanne Bougie said she was impressed with Costello's show. "He's a big part of my life. I grew up with him, so it was great to see him growing even farther at his age," Bougie said. She also singled out the Tord Gustavsen Trio, Joe Zawinul Syndicate, "Saint" Ben Harper, McFerrin, DeJohnette's first show with Herbie Hancock and Dave Holland, Louis Winsberg's Jaleo flamenco jazz concert and pianist Stefano Bollani. In fact, when Bollani asked for audience requests to construct an impromptu medley, it was Bougie who shouted out Love Me Tender.

CBC Radio's Katie Malloch, host of Jazz Beat, didn't hesitate to pick Gary Burton and Makoto Ozone - "really well-matched, masterful musicians," she said - as a favourite, along with Kenny Wheeler and the Dave Holland Big Band.

David Becket, jazz director for WWPV radio in Burlington, Vt., said he concentrated on acts he couldn't easily hear in the United States. "Where else could I hear the Italians and the French?" he asked, citing clarinettist Gabriele Mirabassi and pianists Baptiste Trotignon and Martial Solal. He also praised Wheeler, Lagrène's "Django-palooza" and the French rocksteady combo Jim Murple Memorial.

Writer Michelle Mercer, who is working on a biography of opening-night hero Wayne Shorter, covered what she called the "embarrassment of riches" for the Wall Street Journal.

"It's not often we get to see solo performances by the German avant-gardeist Joachim Kühn or a full piano concert by Egberto Gismonti, who's more well-known for guitar," Mercer said.

"The programming is almost too rich," Gilles Boudru, the Paris-based editor of Jazz Notes magazine agreed. "You're always trying to make impossible choices." Boudru, attending the festival for the first time, singled out shows by Wheeler, Gustavsen and the Avram Fefer Trio as picks that paid off. He also spoke enthusiastically of local musicians like pianist Jeff Johnston and drummer Greg Ritchie.

For Arnold J. Smith, jazz-history lecturer at New Jersey City University and treasurer of the Jazz Journalists Association, the festival has no comparable counterpart in North America.

"It's the most expansive and experimental festival - and you can hear Cuban music and ethnic sounds directly from the source, instead of the more derivative copycat acts you find in other festivals," he said.

Smith, a 10-year veteran, gave his strongest endorsement to Konitz's four Invitation series concerts. "It was like growing up with Lee all over again, yet he never repeated himself," he said.

Even genre-spanning expectations were met. Publicist Brian Coleman, who helps bring festival-bound journalists to Montreal for the Boston firm of Braithwaite & Katz, bestowed kudos on everything from David Murray's straight-ahead jazz to the Fefer Trio's mixmaster approach and Rubin Steiner's "Jazztronica."

And Brazilian songbird Bïa? "Kicks Cesaria Evora's ass," Coleman said.

And with the jazz-fest music goes the peerless jazz-fest ambience.

"It's a gigantic festival, but also très intime - a big machine that has a family atmosphere," Boudru said. "People on the street stop you to talk about music - people you will probably never see again."

The festival's good vibrations act as a great equalizer, according to Anaïs Detolle, who welcomed the musicians as soon as they got off the airport bus at the Wyndham Hotel.

"There are a lot of big stars at our festival, but they don't act like it," she said. "Maybe it's the atmosphere."

Or people like Detolle. Jazz Times reporter Bill Milkowski, who wrote Swing It! An Annotated History of Jive, said he has a sentimental attachment to the festival because his first child was conceived here in 1994. For him, it comes down to support at all levels.

"Compared with the staff at other festivals, the people here really reveal themselves as human beings and music fans. You develop friendships here that you don't elsewhere. The kindnesses seem to seep down to the audiences, who really co-operate with the musicians in creating an atmosphere. I've seem some of these artists elsewhere, but somehow they play out of their minds here - maybe because of the vibe of the audience," Milkowski said.

"You don't see negative displays of rowdiness. Everybody's mellow here, Human kindness - hey, what a concept!"