Humphrey Lyttelton died on 25 April 2008: see press release with tributes.

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Humphrey Lyttelton was born on 23 May 1921, in Eton College where his father was a famous housemaster and where he was subsequently educated.

During the war, he served as an officer in the Grenadier Guards and, on discharge, studied for two years at Camberwell Art School.

In 1949, he joined the London Daily Mail as a cartoonist, during which time he also wrote the story for Trog's Flook cartoon - Trog being the nom de plume of clarinettist Wally Fawkes.

He formed his first jazz band in 1948, after spending a year with George Webb's Dixielanders, a band that pioneered New Orleans-style jazz in Britain. The Humphrey Lyttelton Band, with Wally Fawkes on clarinet, soon became the leading traditional jazz band in the country, with a high reputation in Europe gained through many Continental tours.

In 1949 he signed a recording contract with EMI, resulting in a string of new much sought-after recordings in the Parlophone Super Rhythm Style series.

Prior to that, he had already made records on his own London Jazz Label, and had accompanied the great Sidney Bechet in an historic session for Melodisc in 1949.

 

It was for Parlophone that Humphrey recorded his own Bad Penny Blues which, in 1956, was the first British jazz record to get into the Top 20.

Highlights of that early period included a solo visit to the first International Jazz Festival at Nice in 1948, where he was able to sit in with the likes of Rex Stewart, Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines and Sid Catlett, and where Louis Armstrong ventured the opinion that the boy was coming on.

Humphrey returned the favour in 1956 when his band played alongside the Armstrong All Stars in a string of London concerts, at the end of which he plonked a homemade crown on Satchmo's head and, belatedly, crowned him King Of Jazz.

In the late Fifties, Humphrey Lyttelton caused turmoil among his fans by enlarging his band and his repertoire to include mainstream and other non-traditional material.

 

The eight-piece band, with such stars as Joe Temperley, Tony Coe and Jimmy Skidmore, toured the States in 1959, and led to fruitful collaborations in Britain with Buck Clayton, Buddy Tate and blues singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Turner during the Sixties.

Humphrey was Chairman of the hugely popular panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on Radio 4, which he presented for 30 years.

 

He also presented The Best Of Jazz on BBC Radio 2, showcasing the best of jazz on record in radio's most popular and authoritative jazz show.

As a journalist, his articles appeared regularly in Punch, The Field and the British Airways Highlife magazines. He wrote seven books and more than 120 original compositions for his band.

 

In his leisure time, Humphrey enjoyed birdwatching and practised calligraphy (he was President of The Society For Italic Handwriting). In 1984, finding time hanging heavy, he founded his own record label and called it Calligraph.

Humphrey was much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, on his own and in combined presentations involving his band.

In 1987 he was awarded an Honorary Degree in Letters at the University of Warwick. In 1988 he was awarded an Honorary Degree in Letters at Loughborough University, in 1989 an Honorary Degree in Music at Durham University, and in 1992 an Honorary Degree in Music at Keele.

Humphrey was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at both the Post Office British Jazz Awards in April 2000 and at the first BBC Jazz Awards in 2001. He was also the recipient of the radio industry's highest honour in 1993 - the Sony Gold Award.

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