The London Jazz Award recognises the talent and dedication of singers and instrumentalists working in and visiting the city.

Winner: Julian Siegel

With help in the judging process from:

Paul Pace, Music Bookings, Ronnie Scotts
Sebastian Scotney, Editor, LondonJazz

Shortlist, click for review:

The 'snapshot' of Likes above was taken on Monday/Tuesday, July 4/5. For judging process, please see below.

Click on the title for a link to the original review.

Long list in competition - nominations: 13

London Jazz Award nomination Julian Siegel

LondonJazz review: 'He is as confident in the field of hard bop (Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson his more obvious influences) as he is in slightly more outré styles: ('Game of Cards' borrows its form from Stravinsky, 'Drone Job' sparingly utilises electronics etc. , and Urban Theme Park is a polished, subtle but engagingly vigorous piece of work.'

Album

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Jun 22

London Jazz Award nomination Submotion Orchestra

MusicOMH review: '.. it is the singing from Wood which really makes the band stand out. Dressed in shimmering black sequins she gives a calm, restrained performance, her soft, husky voice assimilating with the instruments but rarely overtaking them. Her voice could easily have belonged to one of the black jazz greats, or maybe Jill Scott, though as a white girl from Huddersfield the comparison with Adele is more apt.'

Jazz Cafe

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May 14

London Jazz Award nomination Gareth Lockrane Big Band

London Jazz review: 'The Big Band provides not only a vehicle for Lockrane’s virtuosic flute solos, but a perfect platform for the rest of the band's hand picked players, for whom Lockrane’s utterly satisfying original compositions are written.'

Spice of Life

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Apr 20

London Jazz Award nomination London Horns

LondonJazz review: 'All of the music, whilst certainly funk heavy, takes on the scope and influence of the bands’ vast and varied experience, allowing the individually striking players to bounce of each other with gleeful results. A very enthusiastic audience didn’t want to let them finish. I would encourage anyone to catch them live.'

The Crypt, Camberwell

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Apr 19

London Jazz Award nomination Matt Roberts Big Band

Jazzwise review: '.. turned out a riveting performance of original compositions and arrangements with passion, enthusiasm and skill.'

Spice of Life

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Apr 19

London Jazz Award nomination Jason Yarde

FT review: '.. behind the rootsy, freely developed surface lies a cast-iron structure. They stopped, without visible cue, in the blink of an eye.'

Pizza Express

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Mar 15

London Jazz Award nomination Christine Tobin

Guardian review: '.. has proved herself as a jazz musician, a songwriter and as a Leonard Cohen interpreter of distinction. She is also a generous collaborator, lending her warm vocals to projects as different as Don Paterson's Lammas, Harvey Brough's Requiem in Blue and Crass Agenda.'

606 Club

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Mar 08

London Jazz Award nomination Soweto Kinch

Guardian review: '.. number one in a field that he's made his own, as saxophonist, band leader, composer and rapper/MC. Whether he's playing festivals, rock venues or cosy jazz clubs like this one, he's always prepared to challenge his audience with giddying changes in style and content.'

Pizza Express, Soho

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Mar 07

London Jazz Award nomination Sue Richardson

LondonJazz review: 'Eclipse .. a number loosely based on a riff that arose from the chords of Fly Me To The Moon. From a slow Latin groove emerged a truly emotive melody written and executed with delightful sensitivity by Sue on her flugelhorn.'

Elgar Room, Royal Albert Hall

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Mar 04

London Jazz Award nomination Gwilym Simcock

ArtsDesk review: 'Like the greatest musical magpie of them all, Igor Stravinsky, Simcock can dip in at will to the entire breadth of the piano repertoire, be it jazz (Keith Jarrett, John Taylor) or classical music (Chopin, Rachmaninov).'

The Forge

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Mar 02

London Jazz Award nomination Rachel Musson

LondonJazz review: '.. had given herself no mean challenge: launching - with a quick sound check rather than a rehearsal , I was told - straight into a forty-minute completely freely improvised set with older musicians: pianist Liam Noble and drummer Mark Sanders.'

Vortex

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Mar 01

The Judging Process

We wanted to include work by established as well as those not-so-established artists and performers (some awards leave out many worthy contenders). The Facebook and Twitter numbers is a way to do this without specifying criteria but using audience reaction (criteria would always be contentious). Using audience 'likes' allows for a more 'democratic' way to judging the award.

Human nature is a wonderful thing and it is possible that artists and performers will encourage others to 'like' their nominations to increase their number. This is why reviews are also part of the judging process.

We understood at the outset that it was likely that all judges will not have seen/read/heard all entries in their category. We had a choice, either to limit the number of nominations to what judges can be expected to see, or to be more inclusive and bring in those from the Fringe who don't have huge audiences and yet produce amazing work. We decided to be more inclusive.

With so many awards and nominations it would have been impossible to run on the basis that each judge will have seen every nomination in their category and to recognise and nominate great talent/performance when it is reviewed.

In any case all are in good company and all are worthy of winning the award.

There is no perfect judging process, however, the democratic part to the judging process, and the review commentary, as well as the judges' expert opinion, will together give us a fair and transparent process and a credible winner.

Each nomination below is based on a highly rated review in the national press. There is a Facebook and a Twitter button with a number of 'Likes' against each nomination. There are also a number of Likes on the original online review (there may be other online reviews but we can only take one into account). We shortlist nominations with the highest number of Likes from both pages and ask judges in each category to help decide the winner from the shortlist. Very occasionally there is a review that does not have the Facebook and Twitter buttons because the publication has not included them and so we have taken the numbers from the award page.

Note that the number of Facebook Likes on the award page is occasionally different from that on the the online review. It's probably because the original review page was changed (perhaps being updated) in some way after the nomination and Facebook starts counting again, so to account for this we only take the highest number.

We ask each judge to give us their top three in order of preference from the shortlist. We'll merge that with the other judge's preferences and that should give a clear winner. If not, a discussion between the judges should do so, and if there is yet no agreement, the London Awards Director will have casting vote.

All nominees are invited to the ceremony.

London Jazz Awards 2010 Winners and Nominations