With no corporate sponsor and pressure on black entertainers to avoid Cincinnati, producer Joe Santangelo is ready to cancel the Tristate's biggest music event, the annual stadium soul festival known as the Jazz Fest.

        “I'm going to do my best to try and keep this festival going,” said Mr. Santangelo, whose family has produced the event for 35 years. “But I'm not going to take an undue amount of risk. I'm not going to leave my brains on the streets of Cincinnati over this issue.”

        The festival costs $1.7 million to produce, and Mr. Santangelo is seeking a corporate sponsor willing to pay “in the six figures” for naming rights.

        The festival lost $550,000 in 2001, which Mr. Santangelo attributes to the April riots rather than any boycott.

        To save the festival, which brings millions into the area's economy, this year's event has been approved for a $150,000 grant and a $75,000 short-term loan from the city of Cincinnati, as well as a $50,000 grant from Hamilton County. The festival is scheduled for July 26-27.

        Mr. Santangelo said the artist fees alone will cost $1 million for the two-night event, scaled back from last year's three.

        Finding support in the private sector has been difficult after last year's shortfall and the economic slump after Sept. 11, he said.

        “It would be a real travesty to lose the festival,” councilman Paul Booth said.

        “I would hope with all the efforts the city, as well as private citizens, are doing to address the boycott that we would have a sponsor step up to the plate so the festival can go on.”

        After 12 years as title sponsor, Coors Light dropped out after last summer's event. Mr. Santangelo is hesitant to risk 35 years of goodwill by booking acts for an event that may not happen.

        But as Cincinnati struggles with a boycott called by groups concerned about police-community relations and economic disparities, it may be more difficult to attract talent to the festival.

        Mr. Santangelo said artists who commit to Cincinnati would be exposed to boycott organizers.

        Comedian Bill Cosby and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis are among those who have canceled concerts.

        A spokeswoman for the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati said Thursday that the Jazz Festival was going to be a boycott target this year. In 2001, demonstrators marched downtown during the festival and passed out leaflets related to the boycott.

        “We would certainly encourage people not to attend this year for the same reasons we told them not to come last year,” said Amanda Mayes.

        Unless he can get a corporate sponsor and the boycott ends, Mr. Santangelo is resigned that the Jazz Fest's 35-year Cincinnati run might end.

        “I've done this my whole life,” he says. “It'll be a shame if it ends this way. But if it does, it does.”

       Kevin Aldridge and Jim Rohrer contributed to this report.

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