Humphrey Lyttelton was descended from a long line of land-owning, political, military, clerical, scholastic and literary forebears. Not a musician among them. He claimed to have most in common with a former Humphrey Lyttelton who was executed for complicity with Guy Fawkes in the Gunpowder plot.
He was born on May 23rd, 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 Grenadiar Guards and, on demobilisation, studied for two years at Camberwell Arts School.
He formed his first jazz band in 1948, after spending a year with George Webb’s Dixielanders, a band which pioneered New Orleans-style jazz in Britain. Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band, with Wally Fawkes on clarinet, soon became the leading traditional jazz band in Britain, 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 now much sought-after recordings in the Parlophone Super Rhythm Style series. Prior to that, the band 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 Humph recorded his own ‘Bad Penny Blues’ which, in 1956, was the first British jazz record to get into the Top Twenty.
Highspots of that early period include a visit with an all star British band to the first International Jazz Festival in Nice (1948), where he ‘sat in’ with the likes of Rex Stewart, Jack Teagarden and Earl Hines and where Louis Armstrong was heard to say ‘That boy’s comin’ on!’. In 1956, when Louis Armstrong and his All Stars played a run of concerts in London, Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band were chosen to open the shows. On the last night, during the finale, Humph put a homemade crown on Satchmo’s head and, belatedly, crowned him ‘King of Jazz’.
In the late Fifties, Humph shocked many of his fans by enlarging his band and his repertoire to include mainstrea and other non-traditional material. The eight-piece band with its saxophone section of Tony Coe, Jimmy Skidmore and Joe Temperley, toured the United States successfully in 1959 and led to fruitful collaborations in Britain with Buck Clayton, Buddy Tate and blues-singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Turner during the next decade.
In leisure moments,he enjoyed bird-watching and was a keen amateur calligrapher. In1990, he was appointed President of the Society For Italic Handwriting. In 1984, he founded his own record label, Calligraph Records. This was primarily to record his own band, and there has been a steady flow of their albums, sometimes featuring guest artists -- Wally Fawkes, Helen Shapiro, Buddy Tate, Lillian Boutte and, latterly, Stacey Kent with Jim Tomlinson, Tina May and Annie Whitehead. Humph also made recordings on the label with Kenny Davern and Acker Bilk. Several Lytteltonians have been featured with their own groups, notably Bruce Turner and also Adrian Macintosh, Ted Beament and the late Paul Bridge, the latter replaced in their group Trio Time by John Rees-Jones. Other artists who have recorded for the label include singer Maxine Daniels, Australian cornetist Bob Barnard and the trombone ensemble, Bone Structure. There have also been reissues of Humph's early work for the Parlophone label in the Fifties. Humph had been much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, on his own and in combined presentations with his band. He was awarded Honorary Doctorates, in Music, Letters or the Arts at the Universities of Warwick (1987), Loughborough (1988), Durham (1989), Keele (1992), Hertford (1995) and de Montfort (1997).
In 1993 he was presented with the Gold Award at the Sony Radio Awards for services to broadcasting and in 1996 with the prestigious Waterford Crystal Award by the Institute of Entertainment and Arts Management for outstanding contributions to the entertainment business. In April 2000 he achieved the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Post Office British Jazz Awards and, in July 2001 the similar award at the BBC Jazz Awards in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. In 2008 he was posthumously awarded the Radio 2 Jazz Artist Of The Year award at the BBC Jazz Awards in the Mermaid Theatre, London
All the while he continued to play full-time with his band, as well as broadcasting and writing. There have been collaborations in concert with Elkie Brooks, with whom he recorded an album on her label, and with singer Tina May. In 2006, he enlarged his band once more to eight-piece, attracting many enthusiastic reviews in the process.
The Band - with Tony Fisher
In January 2008, Humphrey Lyttelton celebrated sixty years as a bandleader, leading a band which he ranked as one of the very best of his career. Its hallmark is versatility, reflected in a repertoire which extends from early traditional to modern by way of Ellington and Basie.
The band's range is also shown by the cast-list of artists whom it has accompanied on disc or in special presentations over the years, among them instrumentalists Buck Clayton and Buddy Tate, singers Jimmy Rushing, Marie Knight, Big Joe Turner, Elkie Brooks, Helen Shapiro, Stacey Kent, Tina May and Annie Whitehead. Perhaps surprising is a single-track appearance on a CD by the esoteric pop group, Radiohead, recorded in July 2000.
The band has had, over the years, many distinguished arrangers, among them Kenny Graham, Buck Clayton, Harry South, Eddie Harvey and, most prolific of all, Pete Strange, whom Humph introduced on-stage as 'our staff arranger'. Not to be forgotten are Humph's own compositions, of which he recorded well over two hundred, including 'the medley of his hit', Bad Penny Blues.
Add to the above the leader's own witty and informative commentaries, and it's little surprise that the prevailing reaction from audiences was 'We never thought a jazz concert could have such variety!'.
The most important ingredients are, of course, the musicians, all stars in their own right!
Adrian Macintosh - Drums
Adrian came to London from Yorkshire in the 1960's, where he soon became much in demand as freelance. His musical associations, national and international are too numerous to list here.
He became a member of the Humphrey Lyttelton band in 1982 and, within a year, was joined in the rhythm section by Paul Bridge. The rapport between then did much to create the most swinging rhythm team in town.
When Ted Beament came into the band in the mid-Nineties, that rapport was further enhanced, leading to a trio with the versatility to work as a band unit and as a group in its own right.
That group, called Trio Time, has recorded successfully for the Calligraph label proving that, when the ingredients are right, you can have your cake and eat it!
Jimmy Hastings - Alto Sax, Clarinet And Flute
Jimmy auditioned for Humphrey Lyttelton’s band when Tony Coe left in the early Sixties. Then primarily a tenor saxist, he had to borrow Tony Coe's alto for the audition, which may be why he wasn't immediately accepted.
Since then he has become one of the most highly respected musicians on the British music scene, in demand for session and theatre work as well as many jazz assignments in top bands both large and small. He finally joined the band in the mid-Nineties.
Humph says, ‘Thirty-odd years may seem like a long time to mull over an audition, but one doesn’t rush into these things!" Jimmy's versatility is now a prime asset.
John Rees-Jones - Double Bass
Classically trained as a cellist, John toured and recorded as such with Keith Tippet’s Centipede, an early cross-over group, and subsequently appeared with, among others, Yehudi Menuhin and Peter Pears. He moved over to double bass and bass guitar in the late 1970s.
A list of those with whom he has worked in jazz and also theatre music (in nineteen countries) would constitute a show-business encyclopedia.
In all of this he has found time to act as visiting teacher of jazz double bass and bass guitar at Eton College and to tutor several hundred jazz workshops nationwide.
Now, after deputising frequently with Humphrey Lyttelton’s band in recent times, he brings his vast experience to the band on a permanent basis (‘the permanent bassist, in other words, and I get that in before he does!’ H.L.)
Ray Wordsworth - Trombone
Born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, by the age of ten Ray was playing trombone with the Rawmarsh Brass Band and, at fourteen, gigging with a local jazz band.
It's little wonder that he turned professional on leaving school and began a career which took him from work with Joe Daniels, Sid Phillips, Ken MacIntosh and other name bands to the Principal Trombone chair in the BBC Radio Orchestra.
His route into the Humph band in 2004 has taken in bands from Freddie Randall to Stan Tracey and studio work has equipped him with a bagful of stellar names from Sinatra downwards, which, but for his natural modesty, he could scatter like confetti. All of which can be summed up in two words - talent and experience!
Robert Fowler - Tenor Sax, Baritone Sax and Clarinet
Robert began his musical career in Bristol , while he was studying graphic design. Work with a variety of local bands, often sitting in with visiting solo stars of the calibre of Danny Moss and Roy Williams, eventually put the design career on hold when he became a popular attraction in his own right.
Over recent years, he has played regularly with the Humphrey Lyttelton band, deputizing variously for Kathy Stobart, Jimmy Hastings and Karen Sharp. After a long wait of almost Gordon Brown proportions and the departure of Karen for fresh pastures, he has become a full-time member, bringing with him enormous experience in bands ranging from the Pasadena Roof Orchestra through the swinging Back to Basie Orchestra to the adventurous Alan Barnes Octet.
On whichever instrument he chooses to pick up, he has shown himself a show-stopper!
Ted Beament - Piano
Self-taught in his youth, he studied with bassist and teacher Peter Ind. In his own words, he sidled into, rather than burst upon, the London jazz scene.
For many years he did gigs with his own trio and with other freelance groups, reaching a point when many top international musicians were happy to have him supporting them.
He is also a superb and sensitive accompanist, as singers Maxine Daniels and Helen Shapiro have readily testified.
Over the years he has played frequently with Lyttelton band colleagues Adrian Macintosh, Paul Bridge and, since Paul's death, John Rees-Jones but when he himself joined the band in early 1995, it was his first-ever job with a regular working band; an extraordinary fact which he puts down to being a ‘late-developer’!
Tony Fisher - Trumpet
He also recorded and toured with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Liza Minnelli, Natalie Cole, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle and Robert Farnon, plus playing on many pop records with The Beatles, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield etc. Jazzwise , he worked with Tubby Hayes, Stan Tracy, Johnny Dankworth, Allan Ganley and the great Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Band. In 1993 he became leader of the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra and was greatly honoured when asked to join the Humphrey Lyttelton Band in 2008 after Humph's death.