A teenage saxophonist in his first year of A levels won the inaugural BBC Young Musician Jazz Award in Cardiff on Saturday.

Alexander Bone, from Darlington, comes from a musical family and is a ‘natural’, with bags of bandstand personality and presence of mind.

The victory will be a huge boost for him because the competition rides on the famous biennial BBC Young Musician contest for classical music, which has given us such names as violinist Nicola Benedetti (2004) and pianist Freddy Kempf (1992).

The semi-finals of the classical competition and the finals of the jazz award were held at the college’s Dora Stoutzker Hall at the weekend in a huge accolade for the capital.

Five jazz finalists appeared in order of chronological age. They were alto saxophonist Sean Payne (13); bassist Freddie Jensen (14); Bone; trumpeter Jake Labazzi (16); and alto saxophonist Tom Smith (18).

It was a stellar night, packed with British jazz musicians of international rank, including the Gwilym Simcock Trio, with whom each finalist played a twenty-minute set. The judges, chaired by pianist Julian Joseph, were Django Bates, Jason Yarde and Trish Cowles, and the MCs were Soweto Kinch and Newport presenter Josie D’Arby.

Announcing the result, Joseph said at every stage of the competition, the judges thought the winner had appeared.

This suggested a close contest, but it was obvious that Bone, also an altoist, had edged to the front in terms of a confident jazz persona. Simcock had worked marvels with the finalists in three days of rehearsals.

Conventional wisdom states that jazz cannot be formally taught, only encouraged and refined. It depends what is meant by ‘taught’. Each of these finalists comes from some sort of musical background and each will have encountered jazz early on, though Payne says he has ‘always been around jazz’ but only started playing it seriously two years ago.

Smith, in contrast, gigs around London with his own band and in September begins studying at the Royal Academy of Music. Labazzi, who also doubled flugelhorn in his set, is a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.

The most interesting finalist was Jensen, who had the unenviable task of deputising for the great bassist Yuri Goloubev when playing in the Simcock trio (Simcock, Goloubev and drummer James Maddren). Unenviable, because the bass does not enjoy the sustained limelight status of the sax and trumpet.

It was good to see the alto sax to the fore in favour of the ubiquitous tenor, though each altoist could undoubtedly play both. Payne’s version of Billy Strayhorn’s Chelsea Bridge was both highly personal and memorable. What'll he be doing in five years?

Bone has been playing saxophone for eleven years. He’s in his first year of A levels and also plays jazz piano. He is a member of several big and small jazz combos. It showed. More than anyone else in the final, he was an embedded member of the Simcock trio and at several points was evidently leading it where the others were playing concentratedly and being supported. His ballad playing, easy familiarity with the jazz classic On Green Dolphin Street ( a tune made famous by trumpeter Miles Davis) and his own quirky composition, Messed-Up Shape, made him in terms of age at least the best on the night. He was also the most confident and unfazed, laid back almost. That’s a jazzman for you. The judges must have recognised it immediately. He could also be extremely funky, as the audience loudly appreciated.

But no women and no black musicians, let alone black women ones. These are considerations in jazz, in terms of the music's origins and its largely male-orientated following. No doubt the BBC will be addressing this issue in subsequent competitions when inviting submission of those demo DVDs.

The finals were recorded for broadcast on BBC Four on May 23.