THANKS to knock-down airline prices and the proximity of Leeds Bradford Airport, we spent Christmas in Venice. Bliss! No Christmas tree to buy, no turkey, nuts, fruit, pudding and so forth. Think about it and reflect.

Now, if you have noted the shortest of shrifts I give to Trad jazz in this column, you will understand my delight in missing the concert by Woody Allen's Jazz Band in Venice the previous week.

I do not share Victor Lewis Smith's opinion, that he never found Woody Allen funny until he heard his jazz band, but neither can I totally agree with Woody's dictum that "the key to success (in jazz) is drive, emotion and simplicity" (Woody's quote in the Guardian review of his Hammersmith Apollo concert, London, in December).

Sorry Woody, I could never see the point of choosing a style of music that embraced the concept of playing badly.

Listen to the beginnings of jazz, the 1920s recordings by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington to hear the music fulfilling all that Woody mentions, plus the important one he avoids, instrumental virtuosity. This is noticeably lacking in New Orleans Trad.

OK, I will now dismount my hobby-horse for 2005.

Taking a Christmas holiday led to my haste with e-mailing, which resulted in my sending the wrong CD round-up list to the Press on December 24. What should have appeared as my Five CDs of The Year 2004 is as follows:

MOST AUDACIOUS - The Bad Plus, Give (Columbia)

Jamie Cullum upsets elder jazz fans (EJFs) by standing on the piano; The Bad Plus sound as if they are standing on it, while displaying dynamic skills. They further annoy EJFs with tunes by The Pixies, Black Sabbath and Abba, alongside Ornette Coleman and stunning originals.

MOSTLY LIVES UP TO HYPE - Soweto Kinch, Conversations With The Unseen (Dune)

A true, new hard-core saxophone star, winner of BBC Jazz Award and Montreux International Saxophone Competition. Gave the Walmgate NCEM a good shaking back in May as bandleader, composer, arranger and lyricist, bursting with ideas.

MOST WELCOME LATE DEVELOPER - Jacqui Dankworth, Detour Ahead (Candid)

After ten or more years as a stage actress, Ms Dankworth joins the crowd of young female singers and noses confidently ahead of the field, with her impressively dramatic vocal range.

MOST TOE-CURLINGLY CHEESEY - Will Downing, Emotions (GRP)

A tepid, saccharine, Lurve album, with blatant product placement to boot. The chorus of A Million Ways (to please a woman), entreats us to "give her candy hearts and Hallmark cards, if that's what she likes". Lenny Henry's Theophilous C Wildebeest without the irony.

MOST DISAPPOINTING - Kyle Eastwood, PARIS BLUE (Candid)

Son of Clint, but music son of Otis. Sadly not Redding, but the lift manufacturers.

Jazz in York continues at the Black Swan, Peasholme Green, on Sunday night and Karl and Nina play Fine and Mellow at the Rook and Gaskill, Lawrence Street on Monday. Everyone's favourite saxophonist, Frank Brooker, swings into Scarborough Jazz on Tuesday night (01723 379818). There's more jazz jam at the Black swan on Wednesday and the Mardi Gras Band returns to the Old White Swan, Goodramgate, on Thursday night.

Updated: 15:56 Thursday, January 06, 2005