The presence of 1970s disco icons Nile Rodgers and Chic on the new Love Supreme festival's Saturday bill might have been testing the lexicon of jazz meanings to destruction – but it didn't matter in a celebration of inspirational musicianship, sunshine, scenery and humanity of all ages at play. By reviving the 1950s tradition of the outdoor Beaulieu jazz festival, promoters Jazz FM and their partners may find they have invented the British jazz world's Glastonbury.

Even if you craved a little weirdness in the face of Mexican waving to old disco hits, a sinister John Cageian disco-gothic mashup was available just by lounging exactly where the smoothly oiled Chic on the main stage merged with the ambient humming of Portico Quartet in the Arena and the pop soundtrack and random collisions from the dodgem-cars ride. Inventive electronics-improv trio Troyka cannily adapted to all the background distractions by intensifying their sound to a churning, thick-textured, bass drum-kicking roar. The soul-folk gracefulness of singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka, and the euphoria of demented punk-jazzers Three Trapped Tigers and saxophonist Courtney Pine's romp of virtuoso blowing and audience participation were late-afternoon highlights. But nobody outran the sheer flat-out verve of American jazz-fusion collective Snarky Puppy, who funked everybody's suncream off as if recreating the movie Speed, playing as if the tent would explode if they slowed funk- delivery below 50mph.

Saturday headliner Bryan Ferry's tightly skilled jazz orchestra then played some Roxy Music instrumentals from new album The Jazz Age, before they became a regular session-horns section for Ferry and his rock band to mix his own hits with classics including Knocking on Heaven's Door and Jealous Guy. For the Ferry faithful, a reinvention of louche old Roxy anthems as driven by some nailed-on jazz-orchestra power was clearly little short of paradise.

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