Talking Jazz: Why do we neglect our star performers on this side of the Atlantic?

Sir Georg Solti. Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Sir Colin Davis. Gongs are gaily handed out to the great figures of the classical world. Garlands for jazz musicians, however, have always been in short supply. Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Earl Hines all deserved their titles, but they wouldn't be recognised by Debrett's or the Almanach de Gotha. Just about the only jazz figure with a genuine title is Sir Roland Hanna, whose knighthood was bestowed by the President of Liberia.

So, what has Britannia, weighed down as she is by the honours at her disposal, from the GCVO to the lavatorial-sounding Royal Victorian Chain, awarded her own? Stan Tracey, the leading figure in post-war British jazz, makes do with an OBE, an insultingly tuppenny honour for an artist of his stature, while most other names that should be celebrated remain unadorned. The titles don't matter, of course, it's what they represent: recognition, patronage, institutional support, all of which British jazz lacks. A documentary on Tracey is screened on BBC 4, a little-watched and widely unavailable branch of the same corporation that refuses to televise its own Jazz Awards. Milestone birthdays go past untrumpeted, or given scant publicity, so that, for instance, the Queen Elizabeth Hall was barely half-full for Michael Garrick's 70th-birthday concert.

Those odd souls who love that cold and passionless beast, the market, might say fair enough. Such philistines would lead us down the path of mass culture where the biggest is best and small is stupid, the world of Now That's What I Call Music 307 and Liberty X. Zzz, more like. Yes, art can be popular and "stand on its own two feet", as those blockhead marketeers would put it, but high art cannot be guaranteed to do so. Genuinely popular jazz tends to be the less demanding variety. Norah Jones and Diana Krall may sell by the million (aided by some very aggressive marketing by their record companies), but they're hardly at the cutting edge. They do not take jazz on as an art form, and their success does not seem to have much of a knock-on effect. Rare is the happy purchaser of a Diana Krall CD who then goes on to buy an Ornette Coleman album.

Nor are the big record companies using the revenues from the million-sellers to subsidise lesser-known artists. On the contrary, surprisingly established names are being dropped. The quick fix is all, and the slow but steady sales typical of a jazz album do not satisfy the appetites of the ravenous corporations.

In America, they honour their jazz musicians. From Dizzy Gillespie to Dave Brubeck, they are welcomed into the White House, their music is taught in schools, and great centres are built dedicated solely to jazz. While here, the life of a jazz musician is so difficult that Tracey seriously considered giving it all up to become a postman. Have the Brittens, Birtwistles or Berkeleys ever found themselves in such a position? The question is laughable, but the comparison is valid. In Tracey, Garrick, Graham Collier and others we have a generation of British jazz composers who have produced works of mesmerising beauty, yet they have never enjoyed the public and institutional support given to their classical peers.

Great art should be free from commercial imperatives, and if its complexity restricts its appeal to those with short attention spans, then it is the state's role to support it, to feed and water this, the most precious of flowers that can spring from any country's soil. So, as a start, how about Sir Stan Tracey?