Last night, the JazzMann saw the announcement of the winners of the London Jazz Awards 2010 at the Dean Street Pizza Express in Soho. Following the demise of the BBC Jazz awards, and the dwindling amount of ?real jazz’ represented at the MOBO awards, events such as this and the Parliamentary Jazz awards have taken on extra prominence as a way of celebrating the undeniably burgeoning jazz talent in this country. Drummer Steve Keogh and his colleagues at the Global Music Foundation therefore deserve special credit for making this happen.

In the instrumentalist category, pianist John Turville scooped the gong. This was more than deserved, particularly judging by the evidence of his fine debut album, ?Midas’ (you may remember that the JazzMann gave this album a four star review back in January). In the vocalist category two legends of the scene, Norma Winstone and Cleveland Watkiss, shared the honours in what was on the whole a comparatively youthful field of nominees.

Following the awards presentation, the excellent pianist Barry Green hosted a jam session featuring several of the award winners and nominees. John Turville showed off his chops on a probing account of ?Invitation’, aided by Patrick Bettison on electric bass and Gary Husband on drums, while Norma Winstone silenced the background chatter with a charming version of Clifford Brown’s ?Joy Spring’.

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