WE had Chris Barber at Huntingdon Hall last week. He pulled a good crowd and performed his normal enjoyable concert. It did make me start thinking about the whole trad jazz thing, though.

Trad has been a hugely popular genre of music ever since I can remember. If I asked you to name other giants' of jazz besides Chris Barber who are still performing, who would you choose? Kenny Ball? Acker Bilk? Johnny Dankworth? Humphrey Lyttleton? George Melly? Notice anything about this list? I think I'm right in saying that they are all in their 80s or very fast approaching them. So where are the young giants of trad jazz?

Many of the folk groups that appear at the Hall are extremely young.

The folk tradition seems to be alive and well, and flourishing among young people. This impacts on audience, which often has a very good spread of young people in it. Not so trad jazz. The audience is normally, how can I put this tactfully, senior. There seems to be no young players coming through, and therefore both the major performers and their followers are of a similar age. Does it matter? Well, yes, because my big fear is that in 10 or so years, the genre might have died at the top level. I hope not, but given the present facts, how can it not?

A very happy Christmas to all readers of this column and a prosperous 2007

CENTRE STAGE CHRIS JAEGER OF WORCESTER LIVE