Brit Award-winning rapper Little Simz is part of the quality line-up at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival, June 30-July 2

THERE was, says Ciro Romano, a perception that if you liked jazz and its derivatives, you were not the type of person who’d pay a viable ticket price to head to an outdoor music festival. No – the reasoning went that those into the genre were only truly at home in city basement clubs. Summer festivals in the English countryside were the preserve of rock fans, house heads and everything else – except jazz.

Ciro did not think that was right – and 10 years ago, he took the plunge and established Love Supreme, the UK’s premier jazz, funk and hip hop three-dayer.

Camden-based Ciro has also promoted the Love Supreme concept at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm and now oversees the leading jazz-related festival in the UK.

This year – it’s 10th outing – the headliners are all-female, the only festival in the UK for this to have happened and includes Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Brit Award-winning UK rapper Little Simz with the last show featuring Grace Jones. Other big names include four-time Brit Award winner Emeli Sandé, Camden Town saxophonist Nubya Garcia and soul sensation Candi Staton.

Ciro’s entry into running a festival came from an unlikely angle. He had practised law through his 20s.

“I was always a music fan, obviously, but I didn’t think about working in the music industry until I was in to my late 20s. I didn’t want to quit the law but I wanted to work in music – so I became a lawyer for Universal Music.”
Though dealing with contracts and royalties, he was moving in creative circles.

“I went to the gigs, I got to now the managers, promoters and artists and after six years, I decided to branch out on my own in management and promotion,” he says. “It was a bit of a leap of faith. I was giving up law for music.”

His ambition to put on great performers springs from a life time of musical appreciation.

“From when I was about10, I read everything in the music press – Record Mirror, NME, Smash Hits – everything. I went to gigs constantly, all the time. I loved The Jam, Siouxsie and the Banshees, I was a post punk kid. I just loved music – and the stories behind each song and each performer. That has never gone away.”

His decade practising law gave him the confidence for the business end of the work – but it still needed to have a sense for the aesthetics and an understanding of the art of curating a great programme that would sell.

“When you go into promotions, you understand what each act might mean, who might like it, who might buy tickets,” he says.
“The way [author / philosopher] Malcolm Gladwell speaks of doing something for 10,000 hours to be competent and proficient springs to mind. I had already done my 10,000 hours in the music industry before I set up Love Supreme, just without knowing it.”

Emeli Sandé, Candi Stanton and Grace Jones headline this year’s Love Supreme Jazz Festival

He did not breeze down to Sussex and find a field full of buried treasure. It took some work.

“It was tough at the beginning to be accepted in the industry,” he recalls. But he saw what was on offer each summer and bravely thought he could create something new.
“I noticed was how many similar acts were playing the festival circuit,” he says. It made him consider what a programme line up should be about – not what acts agents were selling in packages to promoters.

“To start with, I love jazz and music of black origin. I love Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis – and I started thinking of all the people who love jazz and music inspired by it, music with jazz in its DNA – Funk, soul, R’n’ B. The fact was they were not being well served in the festival world.

“There is the great London Jazz Festival but it is sitting down in a venue. Why wasn’t there an outdoors festival in the UK that supported this genres?”

A trip to the celebrated North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland – only confirmed the inkling he had.

“It was held in a venue like a repurposed O2 Centre,” he says. “It was big, but it still an indoor show. I thought – could this work in a field? Why shouldn’t it? And that was the beginning of it – a festival with for music with jazz in its DNA.”

Once he saw the niche in front of him, the opportunity opened up.

“Jazz is is creatively, artistically and commercially relevant,” he adds.

The healthy British acid jazz scene and nu funk showed the popularity of the genres Ciro promoted. Bands like The Young Disciples, Galliano and the Brand new Heavies had shown the thirst for a UK take on soul and funk.

But Ciro has noticed that while he can select from a wide pool British funk, there is one genre he hosts that still has a large American slant.

“British audiences love Americana R n B and soul,” he says. “British artists have, for some reason, not done as well commercially. There are some – but very few. It is a sadness of mine that these Black British RnB artists can hit a certain point and do not make it quote as big as their American counterparts.”

He turns his eye across the Atlantic to bring in legendary names.

“We have had some truly great acts come over – this year, we have Grace Jones performing,” he says. “There where were certain acts from the 1970s and 1980s I wanted to put on – bands like Earth, Wind and Fire. But promoters will ask if I want other similar bands and I often say no – they have to have a real pedigree. EWF did so much on their early records before they became a hit making band.

“We do like to get a big heritage act – Sister Sledge for example, but we try not to have too many – we certainly do not want to be a ‘legends’ festival.”

And taking a risk on a performer he personally loves but not have yet had widespread acclaim is all part of the thrill of running your own festival.

“We have always taken risks partly because I do not come from the promoting industry originally,” he says.

“We book within circles of a Venn diagram – jazz, hip hop, soul, and funk. I try not to impose my own tastes on it too much and I try not to be too snobby.

“It is important to get contemporary UK jazz like Camden Town Nubya Garcia here – they are starting to play to big audiences – they are now playing to bigger audiences and benefitting from it and are benefitting from us giving them a bigger platform.”

Over the past decade it has got bigger, increasing capacity five times over.

“There were some people who said it wouldn’t work, that the world was not big enough for a festival of this type that no one would come out of the city for a soul and jazz event,” he states.

But the draw of a quality line up – and the setting of the South Downs – showed Ciro that he had created something people wanted to attend.

“It is a festival most definitely for music lovers,” he says.

• The Love Supreme Jazz Festival runs from Friday June 30 to Sunday July 2 at Glynde Place, East Sussex
www.lovesupremefestival.com