Spending the first weekend in July at Glynde Place for Love Supreme 2024 was an absolute delight, with touches of sunshine, a little rain and a LOT of wind. Thankfully, the slightly mediocre weather did nothing to detract from the stunning jazz - funk, soul, blues and hip-hop to swing, bebop and free jazz.
Having enjoyed Saturday’s sets from artists as diverse as Joel Culpepper, Trombone Shorty, Billy Cobham and Dionne Warwick, Sunday began brilliantly with a set from Olatuja. Michael and Alicia took to the North Downs stage with their band and soon the crowd grew, as the lunch-time stragglers wandered in and heard the high-energy, high quality jazz filling the air. Love Supreme can do that - you catch a groove on the wind and follow it to its source, whichever stage it might be coming from.
The Supreme Standards stage was buzzing later to the sounds of John Regen, who picked up with one of my favourite tunes of his - Nobody but You - before I had to dash off to hear Christian McBride interviewed by JazzFM’s Ruth Fisher. Always insightful, this self-deprecating bass player confessed that “Freddie Hubbard made me nervous” before discussing his work with musicians from ‘other’ genres such as Bruce Hornsby and Sting: “Do it because you want to learn.”
Of course, the issue with a festival like Love Supreme is the high standard of artists and the impossibility of hearing them all. A few songs from Galliano and Joss Stone, plus some fascinating younger performers on the New Generation Jazz stage was all I could manage before Christian McBride’s appearance on the Supreme Standards stage with his outfit Ursa Major.
Somebody of McBride’s stature can always attract the best musicians and this iteration of his creativity is no disappointment. Michael King (keys) and Ely Perlman (guitar) are solidly, brilliantly creative but the stars of the show for me were Savannah Harris (drums) and Nicole Glover (sax), who both gave their all in a contained, professional and dynamic fashion on some fabulously expansive tracks.
Crossing to the South Downs stage, I couldn’t get more than a sonic glimpse of Black Pumas, who packed out the marquee. Just a little while later, Rosie Frater-Taylor took to the Supreme Standards stage as Kool and the Gang brought disco perfection to the North Downs stage and closed my Love Supreme 2024 experience, demonstrating why they’ve just been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but can still wow the crowds at the UK’s biggest greenfield jazz festival.
