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The Honours System
That is the address you would write to if you wanted to nominate someone for a national honour — say a knighthood for, say, 'outstanding services to music' If you could think of a British jazz musician who, say, over a period in excess of sixty years, had entertained the public royally, you might want to consider writing to the powers-that-decide and just mentioning the fact that here is a person worthy of their esteemed consideration. You might want to say something to the effect that this person was an enormous influence on his generation, to a large extent introducing them to a happy, life-affirming, tuneful kind of music (not synonymous with sex, drugs or anti-social behaviour) which he continues to popularise to this day and is still going strong long after many forms of popular culture have come and gone. You might want to say that such an individual helped the career of so many other musicians or that he was instrumental in bringing over to this country American artists, many of whom might well have otherwise remained unknown. By doing this, he indirectly led to musical and cultural changes from which later generations are still benefitting. You might want to add your own accounts and reminiscences of what it is about this great man that makes him worthy of the kind of honour bestowed on many who seem, if I may say so, less worthy. It would indeed be invidious and wholly counterproductive to name such lesser individuals, but the world of so-called serious music seems disproportionately stuffed with knightly figures whose claim to fame is something like longevity in conducting a choral society or the composition of a few mechanically self-patterned motets. Then there's those who get their gong from tokenism or because a political party wishes to bask in their transitory popularity. Still you would not want to mention these, lest you be thought rancorous. When appealing to the system it's a good idea not to be seeming to he railing against it. But you might want to be bloodily determined by the system's transparent inconsistencies, injustices and anomalies, to go and write your letter this very hour and get it off in the post — if such a man existed. Actually, there is such a man worthy of knighthood, now in his 87th year, and his name, of course, is Chris Barber. I often think when attending his concerts, which tend to have a different audience from those who frequent Jazz pubs and clubs, that together those that like Trad Jazz might form a fairly large and articulate lobby. That being the case, then here is a chance to be heard on behalf of someone who has done so much to give you pleasure. I don't want all this to smack of collusion or to insult your intelligence by telling you what to write but if you were to write to the address, above, expressing your thoughts, nicely, fairly, temperately and from the heart, maybe something might be done.
Do it now! Andrew Liddle |