British Jazz Hall of Fame:
1. Stan Tracey 25
2. Tubby Hayes 23
3. Humphrey Lyttelton 21
3. Ronnie
Scott 21
5. John Dankworth 18
6. Joe Harriott 12
7. Peter King 11
8. Chris Barber 10
9. Bobby Wellins 8
9. Phil Seaman 8
Living Legends:
1. Alan Barnes 16
1. Norma Winstone 16
3. Cleo Laine 14
4. Dave Green 12
4. John Surman 12
6. Dave Holland 11
7. Courtney Pine 10
7. Henry Lowther 10
7. John McLaughlin 10
10. Art Themen 9
10. Evan Parker 9
10. Tommy Smith 9
*(Contributors) Chris Kilsby, Colin Aitchison, Colin Muirhead, Cormac Loane, Dave Brownlow, Dave Clarke, Dave Sayer, Digby Fairweather, Frank Griffith, Gordon Solomon, Hugh Cochrane, Joan Parker, Ken Drew, Lance Liddle, Maurice Summerfield, Mike Farmer, Neil Todd, Pam Young, Patti Durham, Paul Bream, Peter Bevan, Rob Adams, Roly Veitch, Ron Ainsborough, Ron Hampton, Ros Rigby, Russell Corbett, Sebastian Scotney, Simon Spillett, Steve Andrews, Steve Rubie, Steve Tulip, Tony Eales, Tony Roberts, Wes Stephenson.
12 comments :
Let the arguments begin.
Shouldn't Don Weller be in the hall of fame, along with Bobby Wellins. Think Art Themen might be surprised he's there and Don not.
Thanks for your comment Fred. At the end of the day it's all down to the individual choices. Don Weller, deservedly, did get votes but just missed out on the joint top 9/10. Likewise Don Rendell.
Re Art, as he's still with us, he and Don were nominated in different categories.
As Steve T observes these sort of ranking exercises are bound to create a certain amount of dissonance! I subscribe to BBC Music Magazine which regularly features such polls on different topics. The letters pages are full of "why wasn't so and so in the list when whatstheirname is?" etc., etc. for about six months afterwards.
Kenny Wheeler not being included is a glaring omission.
Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger! Kenny Wheeler, like quite a few just missed out on top ten status. When the dust settles, I'll post the lower positions.
The posthumous Hall of Fame seems all male. Could I suggest one astonishing female, the late great Tina May?
I did suggest Barbara Thompson...
...in retrospect (the retrospectoscope is a great instrument!) I could also have mentioned Kathy Stobart.
An interesting, and brave excecise to carry out! Well done Lance for pulling this together, I guess for general interest, and it's raised some responses/discussion as expected. Given that there are only 2 categories, and respondents didn't have to list their chosen names in any particular order (pulling out the names is always going to give you just short of 10, or many more than 10) but a non-ranked list of 10 was asked for. The resultant two 'rankings' are really just the popularity amongst the respondents which is a small sample of the jazz fraternity who read BSH. But 197 names emerged. I'd be interested in seeing the lower-down suggestions. I also wonder if names belong in 'contribution to jazz' or simply 'popularity' ? Oh, here we go again ! Roll on 2025 :)
Interesting observation by Ken D. I'm guessing the suggestion is that it ought to be 'contribution to jazz' as opposed to personal preference - itself open to subjectivity - though perhaps more demonstrable. If we were to also take out the word 'British', you could almost certainly take out all of the nominations we know so far, with the exception of John McLaughlin who - provided we can agree it's jazz - should certainly score higher than he has here.
This does not necessarily suggest that Americans (or others) do/did it better - though I personally think they do/did - but perhaps points to a distinctly British jazz, of which McLaughlin isn't necessarily a part. Interestingly, I have a dreadful and pretty large book about European jazz-rock which excludes Mahavishnu on the basis that they weren't all European (though three out of five of the original line-up were) and had an even greater impact stateside.
Furthermore, though I don't know all of my fellow contributors, I suspect we are mostly of an age and I imagine, had younger people been polled, it would have been virtually unrecognisable.
"Of an age"!!...
...speak for yourself Steve - and me ;-)
Young Wesley bringing the average age down.
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