' ... As the vanquished charwoman of time begins to shake-n-vac the shagpile of eternity, I've noticed that we've run out of time ... ' Humphrey Lyttelton: 1921 - 2008. Photograph: BBC
While it's only right and proper that Humphrey Lyttelton's broadcasting longevity and comic timing should be celebrated, it's jazz insiders who will feel the greater loss now that he's gone.
Humph was our banner-carrier, a trusted voice for reasoned awareness of the music, and a trumpeter of genuine class and substance. Yes, his extraordinary life-story - Eton, the Guards, Camberwell School of Art, cartooning for the Daily Mail etc - made for good copy in interviews but his real commitment was to the music first and foremost.
Having been first "blown away" almost literally by Louis Armstrong, Lyttelton remained true to the central tenets of jazz - to improvisation, to artistic growth (for himself and his musicians) and to the expression of powerful emotions. I can hardly recall a performance (my listening dates back to the 1950s) where the intensity was below par or the desire to create music of worth was missing. Sure, there must have been routine gigs - everyone on auto-pilot perhaps - it's just that I was never present for any of them.
Humph's obvious prestige meant he received a greater degree of publicity than most, but happily this permitted him to bring quality jazz to an ever widening public. It would be foolish to deny that the extraordinary success of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue swelled the numbers at his concerts in recent years, prompting a flow of comedic asides in his announcements. But the music never suffered.
So what did Humph mean to British jazz? First was his unswerving conviction that British players had something to say: that local composers and arrangers should be encouraged, that his own evangelism for the music needed no apology, that it was incumbent on musicians and audiences to be forward-looking.
He maintained a band for 60 years, longer than Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong, talent-spotted a host of exceptional musicians, including many female instrumentalists, and saw to it that they were given their creative due.
He was a composer (and lyricist) himself, with more than 100 copyrighted pieces, a journalist and illustrator, the author of books of reminiscence and stylistic explanation that bear comparison with any others published in his time. He ran his own record label, Calligraph, always elegantly presented, and sought, through the constant refreshment of his repertoire, to lay down a discography of enduring value.
If nothing else, this much-loved man will be remembered for the sheer joy and pleasure he brought to so many with his brand of jubilant, swinging mainstream jazz.
