In the arts, awards have the same dubious appeal as star ratings: everyone pretends to despise them while privately acknowledging their irresistibility. And while the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Awards, whose first winners were announced in London this week, should be welcomed as evidence of an interest in promoting an idiom engaged in a perennial struggle for existence in the world of show business, the choice of winners will have many fans clutching their heads in despair.
Reading through the list, there can be only one response: it's like John Coltrane never happened. According to the awards, Van Morrison and Jane Monheit are the world's greatest jazz singers, Scott Hamilton is the world's greatest saxophonist, the Yellowjackets are the world's greatest small group and Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint, is the world's greatest bassist. Oh, and Jeff Beck, once of the Yardbirds, is the blues artist of the year. To be blunt, this is a list that could have been compiled by the booker for a mainstream TV show rather than by someone concerned with the continuing evolution of an artform defined for almost a century by its lust for growth and change.
When new owners took over Ronnie Scott's Club last year, the music policy became noticeably more conservative. Fair enough. In order attract a large enough audience to sustain an establishment in Soho, with rents in central London the way they are, no doubt compromises have to be made and non-specialist listeners must not be actively repelled. So the Scott Club, where Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman once held forth, will never again be at the music's cutting edge. But if the place is to be more than just a stage for smoothly marketed revivals of past glories, it needs to acknowledge some of the many currents that are carrying jazz into a fascinating future. The awards would have been a good place to start.
