Humphrey Lyttelton R.I.P.

[Stereojack]

Just received word of the death of British jazz great Humphrey Lyttelton

http://www.humphreylyttelton.com

[Harold_Z]

RIP Humph.

Sad news.

[Christiern]

Very sad news. Humph opened doors for me in 1953 when he allowed a naïve kid from Copenhagen to record his band and an interview. He was a superb, tasty musician with wit as great as his playing. I hope BBC Radio continues to run his radio shows.

[Guest Bill Barton]

R.I.P.

I love this quote that's on his website (link posted above by Stereojack):

"As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication."

[sidewinder]

So sorry to hear this sad news - RIP. He did great things for jazz (and broadcasting) in this country, his 'Best of Jazz' radio show was an education for me back in the 70s and 80s (no rubbish on that show, just fine music). I got to meet the great man a few years back and very kind he was too. One of a kind and totally irreplaceable.

Was only reading in the paper last week that he was due to go into hospital this week for a heart op. Had my fingers crossed but sadly not to be.

Edited April 26, 2008 by sidewinder

[sidewinder]

BBC tribute:

Humph RIP

[Steve Gray]

A very sad day

Humph has been very important to me since the late 50s when I first heard my father's Parlophone EPs and 10 inch LPs by Humph.

I still have them and treasure them greatly.

The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago at the Bulls Head.

Playing 'Blues for Waterloo' right now.

RIP Humph

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Very sad. "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue" was THE best improvised radio comedy show ever.

Sidewinder's right about his radio programme - no rubbish and a wide range of stuff. Even Jimmy McGriff playing "Hittin' the Jug". Humph did love those long, slow, funky blues.

RIP after a great innings.

MG

[BillF]

The grand old man of jazz in Britain. No one who liked jazz in this country in the last half century was untouched by his influence. My first jazz record was his "Bad Penny Blues" which I bought in 1957 on 78 r.p.m. shellac!

[JohnS]

Very sad news. Writer, humourist, broadcaster as well as a fine trumpet player. Still touring up to the end. Irreplacable. He'll be missed.

[sidewinder]

Very sad news. Writer, humourist, broadcaster as well as a fine trumpet player. Still touring up to the end. Irreplacable. He'll be missed.

Yeah. I was really hoping to go and see his band over the coming months as they were still touring with gusto.

Looks like the death was due to post-operative complications.

Will definitely dig out the 'Humph at the Conway' LP on Parlophone. That one is great.

[Stereojack]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertai...-86-815836.html

Independent.co.uk

Humphrey Lyttelton, broadcaster and jazz musician, dies aged 86

By Sadie Gray

Friday, 25 April 2008

Humphrey Lyttelton, the jazz musician, journalist and radio presenter, has died at the age of 86.

Humph, as he was affectionately known, was still working and planning a tour with his band right up to his admission to hospital on 16 April for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. He died at 7pm this evening in Barnet Hospital, north London.

His admission to hospital had forced the spring series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the Radio 4 comedy show he presented for 30 years, to be cancelled earlier this week. In an email to members of the show's fan club, its producer, Jon Naismith, had said he was "otherwise fine and in good spirits".

Last month, Lyttelton had given up his role as presenter of BBC Radio 2's Best of Jazz, saying he was leaving to "clear a space for some of my other ambitions". He had been at the helm of the show since 1967, introducing thousands of listeners to many different styles of jazz.

At the time, the Radio 2 controller, Lesley Douglas, said: "Humphrey Lyttelton is not only a giant in the world of jazz, but has also remained a giant of music broadcasting for the past 40 years. The world of music broadcasting will be poorer without his weekly show."

He was still touring with his eight-piece band, performing sell-out shows around the country, although his forthcoming tour had been cancelled due to his illness.

Lyttelton was born on 23 May 1921 at Eton College, where his father was a housemaster, and where he duly became a pupil. He first picked up a trumpet in 1936 and, after spending the Second World War as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, became a pioneering figure in the British jazz scene. On being demobbed from the Guards he spent two years at Camberwell Art School, an experience he later called upon when he joined the Daily Mail as a cartoonist in 1949. He went on to work as a journalist for Punch, The Field, and the British Airways magazine, Highlife.

Lyttelton formed his first band in 1948 after spending a year with George Webb's Dixielanders, a band that pioneered New Orleans-style jazz in the UK. The Humphrey Lyttelton Band quickly became Britain's leading traditional jazz group, and continental tours gave them a following in Europe.

In 1949, he signed a recording contract with EMI which led to a string of records in the Parlophone Super Rhythm Style series and which have become highly sought after.

1956 was a good year for Humph. Eight years earlier, at the Nice International Jazz Festival, Louis Armstrong had said of him: "That boy's comin' on," and now the King of Jazz asked Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band to open a series of shows in London for him. The same year, Lyttelton became the first musician to enter the top 20 with a British jazz record, "Bad Penny Blues", which stayed in the charts for six weeks.

By the late 1950s he was branching out, enlarging his band and experimenting with mainstream and non-traditional material, and shocking his established fans in the process. In 1959, the band made a successful tour of the United States.

He was a keen amateur calligrapher and birdwatcher, and in 1984 formed his own record label, Calligraph. He composed more than 120 original songs during his career. In 1993 he won the radio industry's highest honour, a Sony Gold Award. He also won lifetime achievement awards at the Post Office British Jazz Awards in 2000, and the inaugural BBC Jazz Awards the following year.

Lyttelton played for the younger generation too: he performed on Radiohead's track "Life in a GlassHouse" in 2000, later joining the band on stage for a concert in Oxford. He said it was one of the most moving experiences of his musical career.

Throughout his life, keeping a sense of humour remained a priority. On announcing his death, his website carried his words: "As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication."

Query: Independent.co.uk The Web Go

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[AllenLowe]

no one has mentioned his writing - there are two jazz history books he wrote, Jazz and Jazz II -

the first is really one of the best books written on early jazz - if you don't own it, try to find it somewhere - brilliant and insightful, much better, IMHO, than Schuller -

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

no one has mentioned his writing - there are two jazz history books he wrote, Jazz and Jazz II -

the first is really one of the best books written on early jazz - if you don't own it, try to find it somewhere - brilliant and insightful, much better, IMHO, than Schuller -

I didn't know about those. Thanks Allen.

MG

[sidewinder]

no one has mentioned his writing - there are two jazz history books he wrote, Jazz and Jazz II -

the first is really one of the best books written on early jazz - if you don't own it, try to find it somewhere - brilliant and insightful, much better, IMHO, than Schuller -

I didn't know about those. Thanks Allen.

MG

They can be obtained together in a paperback called 'The Best of Jazz' and published by Robson Books Ltd. Got my copy from the man himself some years ago, which he was signing at a gig. It starts off with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and goes through to Roy Eldridge.

[Christiern]

It is such a cliché to say that someone's death is a great loss, although it usually is to close friends and family, but Humph's death is, IMO, a significant loss in every sense of the word. The work and thoughts of this multi-talented, wonderfully observant man touched so many people. Starting with his wonderful Parlophones, which I still enjoy over half a century later, Humph played a vital role in putting me on the track that has led me to this forum.

[JSngry]

Never really paid any attention to him, different "zones" and all that, but from what I've read/heard over the years he appears to have been a wonderfully open man with a true generosity of spirit. That's the type of person whose loss from this plane will always be felt as deeply as their presence is welcome while they are here.

Generosity of spirit...the older I get, the more I come to the conclusion that there is no happy life without generosity of spirit...

[Christiern]

Love this photo...

[Clunky]

I was really sorry to hear of Humph's passing. It seemed he'd go on forever. Saw him just a few times , great performer with very good ear and appreciation for a wide variety of jazz forms. Great radio performer too. He was always witting , warm and articulate. RIP Humph, you'll be greatly missed.

[Shrdlu]

His radio show sucked, though. Trad, and similar old fogey stuff. Time the BBC got some new blood, not that they devote much time to jazz.

[Christiern]

I don't know what you are talking about, because Humph's show covered a wide range of jazz styles, including contemporary, and the BBC devotes quite a bit of time to jazz and blues.

[Steve Gray]

His radio show sucked, though. Trad, and similar old fogey stuff.

All I can say is that I do not agree at all with this opinion.

His early autobiographical volumes, 'I play as I please' and 'Second Chorus' are well worth searching out.

They are OOP at the moment I think but perhaps they will now be reprinted.

[BillF]

Trad

Lyttelton had ceased to play trad fifty years ago, when I used to see him fronting his Kansas City style band with alto, tenor and baritone. I saw them play with Jimmy Rushing who, asked if he could sing with this band, is reputed to have said, "It's the real home cookin', y'know."

[sidewinder]

I've always thought of Humph's various groups as being the epitomy of 'mainstream', in the best sense of the word. He always had a few 'modernists' in the ranks, thinking of people like Dave Green, Mike Pyne and Kathy Stobart - not to mention Bruse Turner.

[Alexander Hawkins]

His radio show sucked, though. Trad, and similar old fogey stuff. Time the BBC got some new blood, not that they devote much time to jazz.

Frankly, if there's one style of music under-represented on the BBC (and the radio in general), I would say it's older things (and I say this as someone who makes a living predominantly playing 'free' music). And if the young musicians listened more to 'old fogey stuff' these days, we'd all be playing MUCH more interesting music. In part, I think it's this '4/4 1950-1965' attitude which is atrophying our music.