A vote of confidence

Last night I was honoured to be in the company of Yazz Ahmed, Donovan Haffner, Knats, Heidi Vogel, Iain Ballamy, Olivia Cuttill, Jean Toussaint and others as recipients of the 2026 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. The event took place at World Heartbeat, a venue close to the new US Embassy in Nine Elms. It was the 21st year of the awards, given by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Group, and I was delighted to be given the Jazz Media Award.

As one does, I gave a short acceptance speech in which I said that 64 years ago, aged 15, I came runner-up in the Daily Telegraph‘s Junior Jazz Critic competition, and I’ve been trying to do better ever since.

The Telegraph‘s senior jazz critic at the time was Philip Larkin, a great poet but a very iffy jazz critic: enthusiastic about the early stuff in a duffel-coat-and-college-scarf sort of way, he detested almost anything modern (sample phrase: “the passionless creep of a Miles Davis solo”). He was one of those critics who decided pretty early on that things aren’t what they used to be.

That, I said, is not how I feel. Things are tough for anyone who chooses to play jazz for a living, particularly in cash-strapped Britain, where libraries and humanities courses are under threat, but the music itself is thriving, particularly among young players. When it comes to signs of life, I could give lots of examples, but the one I chose was this, and it came to me last week, on a evening when I heard Melissa Aldana, the Chilean saxophonist, at the Wigmore Hall after spending the day writing a sleeve note for the next album by the Welsh saxophonist Rachel Musson, both wonderful improvisers.

Sixty-odd years ago, when I was devouring the Melody Maker and Down Beat in order to learn about this music, the names of only two female jazz saxophonists ever cropped up. One was the British tenorist Kathy Stobart, the other the American altoist Vi Redd, both useful players. After that, in the ’70s, there was Barbara Thompson. Now, though, I could name you 30 or 40 world-class female jazz saxophonists without pausing for breath. And the same is true for other instruments.

Anyway, it was nice to get the piece of paper, and I’m grateful to the people who organise the awards, which are undoubtedly a good thing when they recognise people like Yazz, Donovan, Knats and the rest. Lobbying for jazz in Parliament can’t be the easiest of gigs, but I’m glad someone is doing it.