Humphrey Lyttelton dies
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Trumpeter, raconteur, broadcaster, champion of all things jazz, Humphrey Lyttelton died at Barnet hospital in north London on Friday aged 86. He had been admitted to the hospital nine days earlier for heart surgery. Only the month before had he retired from his long running BBC jazz show, The Best of Jazz, in a clearly telegraphed way that he was scaling back his workload. But until fairly recently he had been touring with his band up and down the country. A pillar of the establishment, an old Etonian and former Grenadier Guardsman, he nonetheless possessed the ability to communicate directly to his hundreds of thousands of fans over the years gained through extensive touring and his broadcasting work, particularly I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on Radio 4. The tributes, front page news stories, and appreciations that appeared in the weekend papers also emphasised his gift for comedy as much as his music.
After the army he studied at Camberwell Art School in London and worked as a cartoonist for the Daily Mail before pursuing his musical career in earnest, becoming a champion of what became known as mainstream jazz. His heroes included Louis Armstrong and Buck Clayton. He formed his first band in 1948 and before the end of the decade signed to EMI. In the 50s he won the respect of Louis Armstrong and toured the States. Later that decade, in 1956, his song ‘Bad Penny Blues’ was the first British jazz record to enter the top 20.
He toured indefatigably and extensively in the UK and Ireland, often in out-of-the-way places as well as at major concert halls and clubs. His musical style, perhaps to a younger generation may have seemed as if it were sealed in aspic and a memory of yesteryear but to his fans and, still rarer, to the world beyond jazz he was an enormously well-liked and popular figure.