The winners of the 2016 Parliamentary Jazz Awards were announced last night on Tuesday 10 May. The Awards, organised by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG), are considered Britain’s premier ceremony for the UK jazz community.
Featuring a broad array of jazz talent from within the industry, the awards are once again sponsored by music licensing company PPL. The organisation is dedicated to ensuring that all those that invest their time and talent in making music are paid fairly for their work, licensing recorded music in public and broadcast on behalf of its performer and record company members – a number of whom are from the jazz community.
During the ceremony,
award presenters comprised of a host of British politicians and home-grown UK
jazz talent including; clarinettest and composer Arun Ghosh, PPL Chairman John
Smith, luminary jazz vocalists Claire
Martin and Jacqui Dankworth and, Member
of Parliament Baroness Coussins.
Compére for the evening was editor and
publisher, of Jazzwise, Jon Newey: “This has been a really strong year for the
Parliamentary Jazz Awards in terms of talent and nominations. The well deserved
winners are a veritable who’s who of names that have made a real impact on the
music and helped make the UK one of the world’s leading jazz territories.”
The full list of
winners is as follows:
Jazz Vocalist of the
Year: Emilia
Mårtensson
Emilia Martensson is
a London based Swedish/Slovenian vocalist and has built a reputation as one of
the most exciting young vocalists on the UK jazz scene. Her critically acclaimed contributions to
Kairos 4Tet helped them to bring home a 2011 MOBO Award, while her distinctive
voice led The Observer to deem her “The new face of British Jazz 2012”. Her most recent album Ana features her own
songs and is an evocative reflection of her Swedish roots, bringing in folk and
classical influences which prompted Jazzwise to write, “Exquisitely beautiful
songs….Martensson has struck gold”. In
2015, she was chosen to take part in the Take Five professional development
programme run by Serious and commissioned by the EFG London Jazz Festivlal.
Jazz Instrumentalist
of the Year: Alexander Hawkins
Alexander Hawkins is
a British pianist, organist, and composer. In addition to work with his
long-established Ensemble, he also leads the Alexander Hawkins Trio, and is a
frequent solo performer. Through his work in the group Decoy, he has been
called 'the most interesting Hammond player of the last decade and more', and
has 'already extended what can be done on the instrument'. In 2012, Hawkins was
selected as one the first group of young composers to be part of the London
Symphony Orchestra's Soundhub programme, and has since been commissioned by the
likes of BBC Radio 3, and the London and Cheltenham Jazz Festivals. Hawkins
regularly performs across Europe and beyond, and has featured on upwards of 25
albums.
Jazz Album of the
Year: ‘Let It Be Told’
Julian Argüelles (Basho Records)
‘Let It Be Told’ is
Julian’s 12th album as a leader released April 2015. It is a collaboration with
the HR big band with thrilling arrangements of powerful, vibrant compositions
by exiled South African artists known as the Blue Notes, some of whom were living
in the UK during the years of apartheid, and features Django Bates and Julian's
brother Steve Argüelles. The arrangements on this album remain true to the
joyful spirit of the original compositions, while giving them a harmonic
richness and depth. Julian is undoubtedly one of our finest jazz artists,
respected and recognised internationally. He has been an integral part of the
UK jazz scene for over 3 decades now and worked with artists ranging from Dave
Holland and Bill Frisell, to Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Carla Bley and John
Scofield. He has received countless commissions and awards for his playing,
CDs, composition and arranging.
Jazz Ensemble of the Year: Empirical
Talking to The
Guardian in 2008, double-bassist Tom Farmer - a founder member of Empirical -
remarked that ’empiricism is about observing and experimenting, not having a
theory first and trying to prove it.’ At that time, all the band members were
still conservatoire students, but they had already been hailed as ‘the most
exciting band to come out of the UK’ by Courtney Pine, won the Rising Stars
prize at Holland’s high-profile North Sea Jazz Festival, brought a Toronto
concert-hall audience to its feet at an international gathering of jazz
educators, and impressed the locals in that most demanding of jazz cities, New
York. That year, trumpeter Jay Phelps and pianist Kit Downes left, and young
vibraphone virtuoso Lewis Wright came in to join Farmer, saxophonist Nathaniel
Facey, and drummer Shane Forbes. Since then, the membership has been constant,
and so has the Empirical philosophy of curiosity, experimentation and
development.
Jazz Newcomer of the
Year: Binker and Moses
Tenor saxophonist
Binker Golding and drummer Moses Boyd startled the British jazz world last year
when they released their debut album Dem Ones. Most young musicians would have
opted for the more conventional trio or quartet setting, but this duo crackled
with the kind of stark energy and daring ideas that one would expect from older
players. However, both are graduates of the Tomorrow’s Warriors school who have
made an essential contribution to the music of award-winning double bassist
Gary Crosby, vocalist Zara McFarlane and pianist Peter Edwards. Binker and
Moses have an impressive maturity well beyond their tender years.
Jazz Venue of the
Year: Seven
Jazz Leeds
Over the past nine
years, Seven Jazz has evolved into a highly successful voluntary jazz promoter
based in Chapel Allerton in Leeds. Since September 2007 they have hosted hundreds of concerts and
stood the test of time through an ever changing city landscape. However it is
the way they have built the club as a community for Leeds’ jazz scene that is
most impressive. Steve Crocker and his team host two regular concert series, a
small festival and a programme of education that unites jazz fans and musicians
alike. The club allows the opportunity for anybody with interest an accessible
way into the music and their varied programming allows a vast array of styles
to their stages and their demographic (both age and diversity) in performers is well balanced.
Jazz Media Award: Jez
Nelson/BBC Jazz on 3
Synonymous with the
cutting edge of jazz broadcasting for 18 years, Jazz On 3 is a veritable
institution, and Jez Nelson, who presented the programme so engagingly, is an
inspiring figurehead. Throughout its lengthy run the show provided a platform
for many of the more challenging figures in improvised music, recording superb
live sessions by anybody from Evan Parker to David S. Ware and Joe Lovano. Furthermore
there was a range of excellent features on different aspects of both the
history of jazz and the life of a jazz musician that greatly helped to
demystify and ‘humanize’ the artform.
Jazz Education Award:
Professor Dr Tommy Smith
Professor Dr Tommy
Smith is a leading light in European jazz, first and foremost as one of the
finest saxophonists of his generation, and latterly as the founder and current
director of The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra (SNJO). These career-defining
achievements are framed by his status as an international recording artist; a
composer and arranger of extraordinary ambition; and not least, as a jazz
educator.
His tenure with the
SNJO has seen critically acclaimed performances and recordings of programmed
and commissioned works including hugely popular treatments of Ellington,
Gershwin, Mozart, Weather Report and Miles Davis. Tommy Smith is also founder/director of The
Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra and is current Artistic Director of the first
ever full-time jazz course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Services
to Jazz Award: Mary Greig
As a young woman in the the late 1970s - 80s, Mary
Greig was intensely involved with the London jazz community - organising weekly
jazz clubs and summer courses for Jazz Centre Society (the forerunner of Jazz
Services and Jazz UK); representing jazz on
arts funding panels; organising jazz-related events and working in a jazz
record shop. Her passion for jazz led her to
take up the production and publication of Jazz in London, a free monthly guide
to live performance of contemporary jazz in London and the suburbs.
Special APPJAG Award:
Evan Parker
The standup comic
Stewart Lee, an unexpectedly well-versed enthusiast for what’s sometimes dubbed
‘the sharp end’ of creative jazz, regards the now 71 year-old saxophonist Evan
Parker as ‘the greatest living exponent of free improvisation’, and plenty of
the jazz cognoscenti have shared that view as this unique maestro’s sound has
liberated countless young saxophonists round the world, and the thinking of
adventurous composers and bandleaders too.
Special APPJAG Award:
Michael Connarty
Michael Connarty was elected to Parliament in 1992 and
quickly established himself as a fan and supporter of Jazz. Michael was
Co-Chair of Parliament’s Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG) since 1997, working
on jazz development and promotion with PPL of the Parliamentary Jazz Awards,
Jazz Services, Yamaha, promoters Serious and the UK’s Conservatoires. He was a
Vice-President of the UK Jazz Collective, a patron of the Yamaha Music
Education Initiative. During his 23 years as an MP Michael led the successful
campaign with the Musician’s Union to extend copyright payments across the EU
for recorded music to 70 years – from 50 years.
Jason McCartney MP,
APPJAG Co-Chairman, said: “The
Parliamentary Jazz Awards are a great way for MPs and Peers of all political
parties to show their support for British jazz by recognising and honouring the
amazing musical talent we have in our country. From established stars to fresh
new talent, the range and diversity of this year’s winners shows the vibrancy
and creativity of British jazz. We are extremely grateful once again to PPL for
sponsoring the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.”
John Smith, Chairman, PPL, said: “We at PPL have been exceptionally
proud and honoured to have been able to support and sponsor the special
Parliamentary Jazz Awards since their inception in 2005. I would like to
extend my personal thanks and appreciation to Jason McCartney MP and to Lord
Colwyn for doing such a fantastic job in co-chairing and running APPJAG as
well as my thanks to Chris Hodgkins. These Jazz Awards remain a special night for
Parliament, the jazz community and award recipients as well as for PPL and the
music industry generally.”
Back by popular
demand at this year’s ceremony were special guest performances by James Pearson
and The Ronnie Scott’s All Stars.
