Obit: Humph (Jazzman Humphrey Lyttelton-Apr 2008)

Subject: Obit: Humph
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:42 PM

Bye Humph.

How you got away with those jokes I will never know.

A packet of sausages with a picture of Anthony Worral-Thompson.
Underneath it said "Prick with a fork".

RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:53 PM

The official obits will no doubt concentrate on the music , rather than "Clue" and the Humour !
But the Celestial Jam session has another superb Muso !

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:54 PM

Not Humph.... please, say it isn't so!

The baggage handlers of fate have finally caught up with the missing suitcase of time... sad news indeed.

LTS

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:55 PM

I decided three years ago to get to a "'Clue" show live just in case. Glad he made those three years.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: gnu
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 06:01 PM

RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 06:02 PM

Mrs Trellis will be devastated.

May he come to his place in peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Surreysinger
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 06:35 PM

I'm really sad to see this - music aside, his authority and wit on "Clue" provided so many hours of enjoyment and much needed laughter. He'll be much missed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,Ebor_fiddler
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 06:40 PM

God be good to him!

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 06:42 PM

One of a small number of the old guard of british Jazz.

May his legacy grow stronger.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: 8_Pints
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 07:07 PM

A brilliant presenter, humorist and musician.

RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: treewind
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 07:17 PM

The big jam session in the sky will welcome him and his trumpet.
So will Willie Rushton - remember when we thought ISIHAC wouldn't be the same without him either?

Anahata

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Chris Green
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 07:19 PM

Farewell to the one of the funniest and most talented men in the country. They don't make 'em like that any more.

RIP Humph.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 07:22 PM

Seems to me we ought to include his obit:

Humphrey Lyttelton was perhaps the UK's most influential jazz performer.

Beyond this, he was a noted raconteur and wit and chairman of BBC Radio 4's long-running I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

He was the unlikeliest of jazzmen. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was schooled at Eton and commissioned in the Grenadier Guards.

Yet Humphrey Lyttelton - Humph to his many friends and fans - was also a life-long socialist and a performer and composer whose commitment to his music shone through for more than half a century.

And to the younger generation, he was the avuncular and razor-witted chairman of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, who more than held his own with comedians including Tim Brooke-Taylor, the late Willie Rushton and Barry Cryer.

Humphrey Lyttelton was born in 1921 and his father was a housemaster at Eton.

Both of his parents were amateur musicians and he began playing the trumpet in 1936, forming a school quartet later that year.

Humphrey Lyttelton
Lyttelton was a virtuoso, self-taught, trumpeter

On one occasion, when he should have been watching the school's annual cricket match against Harrow at Lord's, he was in London's Charing Cross Road, buying a trumpet.

His long-running love of making music had begun, although on leaving school he worked for a time in a steelworks in South Wales.

He was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards during World War II and saw action, most notably on the beach at Salerno.

But it was said that he arrived at the beach-head with a revolver in one hand and a trumpet in the other.

'Swings his ass off'

By 1948, he had formed a band with the clarinettist Wally Fawkes. That year he went to France's Nice Jazz Festival, where he met his idol, fellow musician Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong always spoke warmly of the man he called "that cat in England who swings his ass off."

Tim Brooke Taylor, Humphrey Lyttelton, Barry Cryer, Willie Rushton, Graeme Garden
Humphrey Lyttelton (bottom left) chaired I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue

In the early '50s, he opened the Humphrey Lyttelton Club in a basement in Oxford Street in London, and during the next 35 years or so he became the elder statesman of British jazz.

He composed more than 120 original works for his band, although some of his best-known numbers were When The Saints Go Marching In, Memphis Blues, High Society and the self-penned Bad Penny Blues.

His band has also backed several singers, ranging from New Orleans songstress Lillian Boutte to Helen Shapiro, and more recently, Stacey Kent.

In 2000 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Post Office British Jazz Awards.

'A very heavy day'

The following year he joined rock band Radiohead for a seven-hour session during the recording of their new album, Amnesiac.

The legendary trumpeter went into the studio with the band after they wrote to him asking for help as they were "a bit stuck".

He said the session, for experimental track Living In A Glass House, left him exhausted.

"When we finally got a take that sounded good to me, they said: 'Good, we'll go and have some food, then we'll come back and do some more,'" he told Q magazine. "I said: 'Not me.' It was a very heavy day."

But playing was just part of Humph's life.

Radiohead
Lyttelton helped Radiohead with their album in 2001

He also presented and performed in many jazz radio programmes - Jazz Scene, Jazz Club and The Best of Jazz, which started in 1968 and only ended last month.

He was also chairman of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue, which billed itself as the antidote to panel games.

The show, which began in 1972, gained a huge and loyal following of listeners, delighted by games like One Song to the Tune of Another, Swanee Kazoo and the sublime, if unfathomable, Mornington Crescent.

Its spring series was cancelled in 2008 when its presenter had to undergo an operation to repair an aortic aneurysm in his heart.

Humphrey Lyttelton - who turned down a knighthood - had yet more talents, too.

He worked for the Daily Mail as a cartoonist, wrote for left-wing papers and for magazines and was the author of several books about music. He excelled at each of his contributions to British life.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 08:04 PM

Oh, Shit,
Another friend I never met has gone.
A great musician, wit, entertainer, war hero and many other things, he'll be missed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 08:14 PM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not a dry eye in North Wales tonight.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: HuwG
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 12:41 AM

Sadly, the hover mower of time has at long last run over the extension cable of destiny.

An irreplaceable, and refreshingly unaffected presenter, as well as being a great musician. Sad to think he has gone.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: open mike
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 01:07 AM

thanks, kat for including the explanation for us u.s. folks..

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: sapper82
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 02:48 AM

Life somehoe seems a lot less colourful.
He'll be missed by many.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Old Roger
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 02:55 AM

He also worked for one of his favourite causes, the improvement of handwriting in the UK and he was an active president of The Society for Italic Handwriting for a long time. I wonder how many other spheres of good work he was involved in which got only low levels of publicity.

He really was a nice guy, a true and unaffected gentleman and it was a pleasure to be in his company.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: autolycus
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 03:10 AM

very very sad.

he did show you could start something new at 50.

RIP

ivor

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: alanabit
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 03:37 AM

We were lucky to get eighty-six years of him. RIP to a really good bloke.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: glueman
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 03:53 AM

Filth at tea time - we'll not see his like again. Blew a very decent tune too.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,buspassed
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:18 AM

Last stop Morninton Crescent

Safe home Humph, safe home.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:21 AM

Unique, irreplaceable, a sad day indeed.

G

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: fat B****rd
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 05:11 AM

All of the above. RIP Humph.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 05:17 AM

yes, a great musician,RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: melodeonboy
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 05:21 AM

Goodbye to a multi-talented gent who was one of the funniest people I ever heard on radio.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:03 AM

What better way to remember the great man than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1-pQziWiKk&feature=related

You don't need those pennies anymore, I think its free up there.

RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: BanjoRay
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:15 AM

He's been a presence in my life since I was a small boy who read a short story of his in a comic annual. The story was called Plumstone's Soap Symphony, about a musician who blew soap bubbles out of his tuba which would emit a note when they burst. The drawings with it were excellent. When trad jazz took over my life in my late teens, there was Humph, and a bunch of us College jazz musos got to jam with him on stage in Aberystwyth in the early 60s. His radio programs - both jazz and comedy - were an essential part of my life's wallpaper. He didn't know it, but he was a lifelong friend.
I'm really going to miss him.
Ray

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:16 AM

Such a well-loved and comic man it's easy to forget the music. Humph recorded one remarkable track which escaped from the confines of the British trad jazz scene and became a big hit in 1956, that great year when all things became musically possible. Skiffle and rock'n'roll were in the British air at the time. "Bad Penny Blues" was highly unlike other Bristish jazz sounds, in fact highly unlike what Humph was playing at the time. Only one horn(his trumpet), piano, bass and drums. The rhythm was highly unusual, more skiffly than the standard trad jazz beats of the time, and the sound was extraordinary. Everything sounded quite different from what you would expect, and that was down to legendary producer Joe Meek who had a very individual ear and also did some great transformations on Lonnie Donegan and other artists at the time. Joe got a great piano sound out of Johnny Parker, and the very distinctive piano lick was mixed very prominently. Humph played a very laid back trumpet and the whole thing loped along in tremendous style.
    The Beatles gave this track a bit of hommage in "Lady Madonna", with a very Johnny Parker-like piano bit.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:48 AM

Thats the link I put up Greg on my post - Bad Penny Blues.
Agree with you completely about it.
Les

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Flash Company
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 07:11 AM

I was dreading this news when I read that he had gone in for heart surgery,we will not see his like again. RIP

FC

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: cptsnapper
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 07:21 AM

At our sessions tomorrow & Monday there will be points for anyone who can sing the words of one song to the tune of another. And what do points mean?

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Morticia
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 08:25 AM

I too feel as though an old friend has gone.....too sad to make a joke about it today.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: alanabit
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 08:34 AM

One of the people, who came up through his band, was the singer Elkie Brooks. That was before she became a rock singer with Vinegar Joe. I saw her singing with Humphrey Littleton in the seventies. It was a fine set too. I bet there were more out there, who owed the great man their start in the business.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 09:47 AM

He'll be much missed. The BBC are repeating an edition of ISIHAC on radio 4 tomorrow at noon, and there will be a special tribute programme at 9am on Wednesday.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: John Routledge
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:02 PM

We saw Humph and his band perform in Malvern Theatre 4 months ago.

It was a full house and he was on wonderful form. RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Bugsy
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 12:44 AM

Very Sad. RIP Humph.


Bugsy

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Cappuccino
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 01:11 PM

The obit said 'schooled at Eton'. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to him at a trade dinner some years back, and I asked him about this. He said he was actually born at Eton as well - and that if you were the son of a teacher at the school, you got educated there free of charge. What a perk!

He autographed my menu and did a little cartoon of himself. I hope I can still fid it...

C.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Anne Lister
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 06:43 AM

Still got a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye - for me, too, it felt like losing a friend, even if we never met.

The band of angels must be delighted to have him join them ...

Anne

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Mick Woods
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 06:45 AM

He always had me in fits of laughter with his radio 4 show. I never heard any of his music though. Goodbye Humph.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: alison
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:00 AM

awww what a shame,
never knew about ISIHAC when I lived over there, but through the wonders of technology I hear Humph most day on my ipod - wonderful program

now whose right hand will Samantha sit on?

RIP Humph

alison

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: RamblinStu
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:18 AM

Bye Humph, thanks for everything

Stuart Pendrill

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: cptsnapper
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 04:03 AM

There's a tribute to Humph on Radio 4 even as I write

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 07:22 AM

Yes a man of great wit and I feel a great sense of loss that he has gone. However Radio 4's re-running of old clips in rememberance of him has had me rocking with laughter and I feel sure that his sharpness will ensure that he keeps us laughing for a long time yet via the radio.

Humph had a connection with the folk world that nobody above has pointed out so far as I can see,in that he was for a time an honorary vice-president of the Workers Music Association, from which Topic Records sprang. I quote from The British Folk Revival 1944-2002 by Michael Brocken,

Humphrey Lyttelton actually became honorary vice-president of the WMA alongside Bert Lloyd, Aaron Copeland, Inglis Gundry and Paul Robeson. Folk and jazz had a shared livelihood and the WMA supported both at political events , booking folk and jazz performers to entertain fans and protesters alike.
Geoff

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Diva
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 12:47 PM

We are great fans of ISIHAC in this house and are gutted but by the sounds of it Humphs was A good life well lived. Condolences go to his family.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 01 May 08 - 05:51 AM

Hi Geoff.
Didn't know of his connection with the WMA.
It doesn't surprise me though.
He always struck me as being very open minded about music of all forms.
Yet another reason to remeber him.
Maybe now a few E Mails could be sent to BBC 7.
I'm sure that most of the ISIHAC clue archive have been digitised by now.
Wouldn't it be great to have a Humph day!
I'm sure that it has already been thought about, but a few nudges wouldn't go amiss.
The R4 Doc on his life yesterday was a very nicely produced prog. (Mind you, Kenneth Clarke is not a natural broadcaster, IMO. Maybe Russell Davies might have done it better. But thats just nit-picking)

Another good man gone

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: Ian
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:13 AM

I dont envy those giving the eulogy. To talk for sixty seconds without pause, deviation or repetition will take some doing. At least they will not have to fear interuption.

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GUEST,Surreysinger at work
Date: 03 May 08 - 07:19 AM

Hmm ... I didn't know Nicholas Parsons was going, Ian ... but it's a great idea mixing the two programmes up!

Subject: RE: Obit: Humph
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 03 May 08 - 08:44 AM

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Minute - fairly appropriate for a funeral eh