Hiromi, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Christian McBride, and so many more light up Love Supreme 2024

As if to repeat last year’s Love Supreme Jazz Festival ushering in autumn in the first weekend of July, high winds and downpours beset the South Downs this year too, yet so varied and exciting was the musical fare that spirits weren’t dampened at all.

Crowd-pleasing excellence such as supplied by Kool & The Gang (pictured below) perhaps isn’t jazzy enough for consideration here — please feel free to disagree — but though neither black nor American the bandleader pianist Hiromi from Japan most surely is.

A keyboard wizard of huge technical ability, she has a wildfire feel for the funkiness latent in jazz since the start and it’s no less prominent but sometime neglected spirit of fun, freedom and play. Backed by Sonicwonder whose trumpet supplies the lyric voice and drawing their set mostly from last year’s excellent Sonicwonderland, she riffles through the directory of the great maestri of the ebonies and ivories, for every touch of Monk or Tatum a hint of Leon Russell, even Jerry Lee Lewis. She mixes it all up with the harum-scarum wittiness common among Japanese musicians playing at an angle to Western music like Yellow Magic Orchestra and The Sadistic Mika Band. Rhythm is a constant: even if your feet are only tapping and hip shakings only inwardly, she never wrongfoots you, grooving to such a degree you holler, whoop and laugh.

For jazz which looks as well as plays the part, two American visitors drew large and enthusiastic crowds. Back at Love Supreme after 10 years, in his James Brown T-shirt double-bassist Christian McBride (pictured below) throws a visual curve ball as his music seldom approaches the good foot, often just a flurry of drum fills away from dinner jazz. His band Ursa Major are young, and one senses a mentor familiarising apprentices with the territory rather than reaching for a brand new bag. But when the pace picks up, the band starts cooking and the joint jumping.

Now was McBride done there: a few hours later he popped up on stage in an unrehearsed addition to headliner Chaka Khan’s set for a snippet of ‘Night In Tunisia’, his bass more eloquent than her now sadly worn voice.

New York’s James Brandon Lewis appears shy, a bit scholarly, but when he blows that beautifully gleaming golden tenor underpinned by his rolling, rumbling rhythm section — quasi-rock’n’roll Fender Precisionist Josh Werner is a master of thuggish menace, Chad Taylor kicks his bass drum pedal like a mule — he fills the tent with the authority of a true master summoning the shades of ‘Trane and Ayler. His sound is huge, almost bludgeoning in its insistence, a self-interrogation where every question births another, melody lines branching and brachiating yet never losing grip or tensile strength. Dedicated to his ageing father, the last song is unlike anything before, being a tender, loving lament. An absolutely unmissable set.

Back in his ‘70s heyday Billy Cobham left your JW reporter cold, but 50 years on the juggernaut propulsion of his big band is mighty impressive, the galloping bass keeping the whole thing moving through the solo and ensemble showcases, a wide sonic palette albeit narrow emotionally.

The church is seldom far from Meshell Ndegeocello’s transcendent jazz sound, as grooves build, morph, dissolve in a simmering invocation to a higher power, the band so bonded they even seem to breathe as one. Yet beneath her austere authority is a sweet vulnerability.

Cécile McLorin Salvant (above) has a colossal voice across the whole range and charismatically bosses a big tent with a set essentially built for nightclubs. The piano is grand, the bass double and drums old school — an acoustic combo electrify a space lesser talents would struggle to spark even plugged in. The tradition of Carmen McRae and Abby Lincoln lives on.

Of homegrown younger singers reaching for the crown, both Konyikeh and Summer Pearl impressed, while London’s expat Portuguese Raquel Martins is a fine singer-songwriter in need of an intimate listen.

Of homegrown jazzers, Tomorrow’s Jazz Warriors Youth Ensemble give a glimpse of who might matter in the near future, while four young London alumni, Oreglo, produced an outstanding set. Teigan Hastings wields a tuba, the jazz antique a mighty bass sound with its own low-end richness and heft, thanks to Theon Cross no longer just a novelty. It swaps lines with c-sé’s keys squiddling straight out of the 1980s and rippling against Linus Barry’s tangy guitar, Nico Rocco’s drums pushing, pulling and torrentially filling every space. This is hot stuff, tough jazz-rock in the wake of The Comet Is Coming with a mission to blow our socks off, the track ‘J.A.C.K.’ segueing into dub-deep reggae and wowing a young audience who whoop along to a very exciting prospect indeed.

Delayed by a gale but embracing all ages, The QOW Trio are a treat, three aces who don’t hold back, their furiously exciting ‘Trane slipstream sound bonding veteran drummer Spike Wells, mature bassist Eddie Myer and youthful tenorist Riley Stone-Lonergan. Big John Patton’s ‘Along Came John’ swings so hard it gets teenage girls jiving on the greensward. Tempestuous jazz on a summer’s day.

Mentioned in despatches are Scotland’s Fergus McCreadie and Norman Willmore, grafting jazz onto the sound and spirit of their homeland, likewise Tunisia’s oud maestro and singer Dhafer Youssef. All three delight and impress.

Finally, your reporter’s personal laurels go to New Orleans’ Trombone Shorty (pictured above) and his band Orleans Avenue who hit the stage like heavyweight champs and have the crowd rocking within seconds. A brilliant addition to New Orleans roll call of greats, they’re gutsy big band R&B deep-rooted in jazz in the tradition of Parliament/Funkadelic, Chuck Brown and Trouble Funk. Covering Prince’s ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ in swinging go go style, there are those giant footprints too. An exuberantly ham showman, Trombone a.k.a. Troy Andrews also plays trumpet, his duet with the bass saxophone on ‘When The Saints’ getting thousands singing along. But are they jazz? Blue Note thinks so. Plus they do Allen Toussaint songs, Mardi Gras second-line carnival numbers… If not jazz, then what? And who says the trombone can’t be a sex machine?