Weeks this quiet are rare in the jazz year. Yes, there are the regular as clockwork pub gigs and little gettogethers around the region, but the more ambitious jazz promoters are taking a short breather.

A good time, then, to reflect upon gongs awarded in ceremonies over recent weeks and to look forward to a highlight of the August holidays.

At the start of this month, the BBC Jazz Awards were handed out, some with the Radio 2 tag and some in the name of Radio 3. That's a useful acknowledgement of the genre's wide range, allowing an unashamedly populist singer and pianist like Jamie Cullum to bag the Radio 2 Artist of the Year prize, while the more artistically inclined pianist Huw Warren won the Jazz on 3 Innovation Award.

There was little surprise in some categories - Acker Bilk for the Gold Award, Peter King for Instrumentalist of the Year - but a pleasing unexpectedness about the naming of singer Liane Carroll not only as Vocalist of 2005 but also triumphant in the Best of Jazz slot.

If one can give an award to an awards ceremony, my own personal "You've got that right" prize goes to the BBC Awards for naming pianist Gwilym Simcock in the Rising Star category. Simcock, currently playing in Acoustic Triangle with Tim Garland and in Bill Bruford's Earthworks, is the most exciting young jazz instrumentalist I've heard in many a year.

And, of course, it's a real pleasure to see Acoustic Ladyland named Best Band.

After all that mutual backslapping in the jazz world, let's turn our attentions to the far more dangerous waters of the cross-genre Mercury Prize and its shortlist announced last week.

Yes, this is the one that sets up a whole bunch of mainstream and indie rock bands and then throws in a token jazz act in order to overlook them when the final prize is given.

However, the higher profile offered in the six weeks between shortlist and actual award is usually useful in bringing jazz to a wider audience, and it's an opportunity wholeheartedly deserved by the wonderful Seb Rochford and his band Polar Bear.

Seb, with his outlandishly large hair-do, has the added advantage of looking more rock 'n' roll than a lot of his fellow nominees, with the

possible exception of Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons.

The Polar Bear disc nominated is their second, Held On The Tips Of Finger, and every home should have one. It is on the Babel label (home, too, to Acoustic Ladyland and Huw Warren - let's hear it for the little label) and the final winner is announced on September 6. Rock on, the Bear!

But before that, we all get to go to Wales and hear some exceptionally fine jazz from all over the world in the little town on Brecon.

Brecon Jazz 2005 is over the weekend of August 12 to 14, and it has to be said that this year's highlights are British and European rather than American, as has often been the case in the past. Does this say something about a change in the axis of jazz power? Who can tell ...

So, in order of personal preference, I am particularly keen to take in the Norwegian Tord Gustavsen Trio, the Scottish Colin Steele Sextet, the Birmingham boy Soweto Kinch, the Swedish EST, as well as Django Bates's Human Chain, Tomorrow's Warriors, jazz rock legends Back Door and the cutting edge Matthew Bourne.

There's more information on www.breconjazz.co.uk and the box office number is 01874 611622.

* News and views by email, please, to pl_bacon@yahoo.co.uk