REVIEW: Love Supreme Festival 2017 (2nd of 4)

The Jacksons at Love Supreme
Photo credit: Andy Sheppard lowlightphoto.co.uk

Dan Bergsagel assesses the development of the five-year-old festival.

By the age of five an average child is a creative problem solver, hands-on experiences help them to form theories to explain how and why things happen, and they can manage social situations with greater independence. Love Supreme is a festival not a child - and indeed not an average one - but much of this seems applicable to the UK’s only greenfield jazz festival in its fifth year.

Having seen Love Supreme grow year by year and being rather excited (here’s my Preview), I’d have to admit that in the past there were aspects of the festival that could be finessed. But with four years of practice to form theories on how to address them, this year’s changes in festival urban planning and the addition of a new stage providing live jazz late into the night have added real texture to the showcase.

At its core, Love Supreme aims to showcase crossover artists, and soul legends, the cream of serious international and UK jazz, as well as new acts, those out there or harder to pigeonhole. Did it meet its remit?

Love Supreme has never been short on Soul acts, and has been unapologetic that they are part of the broader jazz landscape. So did this year have soul?

Plenty. The mainstage hosted Corinne Bailey Rae, Lee Fields and the Expressions, as well as Birmingham, Alabama’s answer to Lee Fields, St Paul and the Broken Bones, led by the disarmingly regular looking Paul Janeway and his sky high vocal range with his professional backing band in tow.

read more at: http://www.londonjazznews.com/2017/07/review-love-supreme-festival-2017-2nd.html