PARDON me for a moment while I turn into my friend Ron Burnett. Ron is a York jazz stalwart who writes the Jazz Notes column for this newspaper. More than once, quite possibly more than twice, Ron has complained about the lack of big jazz events in this city.

Ron plugs some of the gaps himself with his Mardi Gras Band, while assorted other talented musicians fill in the remaining voids.

But as Ron is often heard to mumble through his moustache, why can't York have a thriving professional jazz scene like that in Leeds?

And to cast Ron's complaint a little wider, why can't York be more fun? Now York is probably as capable of fun as any other city, but for cultural fun on a wide scale we have Berwick Kaler. And, um, Berwick Kaler. Now this is not to denigrate our heroic panto dame, whose presence brightens each Christmas (mine included).

The Mystery Plays are important and resonate with the city's history and all that, but fun is probably not the word for it.

The reason such a question pops into my mind lies in the BBC Music Live event, which featured highly in my week away from the grind-screen. This four-day musical treat, which was shared with Leeds and Bradford, turned York into a different city.

This was suddenly, briefly a vibrant fun city, packed with people enjoying themselves and not afraid to show it. My own selection did not come close to covering everything but got the holiday off to a fizzing start. The five of us popped to Museum Gardens for some of the Jazz Sunday event, catching the Syncopated Seven and Ron Burnett's band. The evening belonged to Courtney Pine, and then on Monday, we took the children to the Parliament Street party.

Two things stand out from the events we visited. Well, three if you count Big Ian from Huge.

One: the brilliant Courtney Pine concert showed just what a great music venue York Theatre Royal can be (so long as you don't object to the free sauna.... my but it was hot).

Two: the funky footstreets. Yes, footstreets - that important but dull-sounding York innovation - were turned into funstreets and musicstreets.

On the Bank Holiday Monday, Huge got everyone into a party mood for the vertiginous finale. The French street theatre company Trans Express walked through the crowd beating their drums.

They were dressed like pantomime Napoleons. And soon the drums were banging high in the air as a crane lifted these brave French clowns above the tallest buildings, leaving them to dangle as a giant human mobile.

It was the most arresting sight I've seen in York in 13 years. And Parliament Street was packed with people craning their necks for a look.

So let's have more jollification, please. Let's have jazz stars and rock stars packed into York, not just for one-off events at the York Barbican, but filling the city.

And let's fill the streets as well as the venues. Perhaps the York Festivals of old have been lost for ever, though how good it would be to see them back, cramming the city with enjoyable diversion.

If nothing else, York Music Live showed that York can shake off the apathy, shrug away the oh-that's-not-for-me-ness and have some fun.

It wouldn't be fair to end without pointing out that there is a week-long jazz festival in York this very next week. More Jazz On A Summer's Day celebrates jazz in all its forms and runs from June 11 to 17.

And, as my jazz friend likes to say, most events are at York's favourite price: free.

Ron Burnett himself is even in there somewhere. But now I shall give Ron back his moustache.

It doesn't half itch.