Humphrey Lyttleton & His Band

Humphrey Lyttleton & His Band

Genres: jazz, trumpet, blues, swing, humphrey

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About Humphrey Lyttleton & His Band

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (23 May 1921--25 April 2008), also known as 'Humph', was a well-known British jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949. To do so he had to break with the Musicians' Union restrictive practices which forbade working with jazz musicians from the USA. In 1956, he had his only hit, with the Joe Meek-produced recording of "Bad Penny Blues", which was in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. As the trad movement (not quite the same thing as revivalism) developed, Lyttelton moved to a mainstream approach favoured by American musicians such as trumpeter Buck Clayton; they recorded together in the early 1960s and Clayton considered himself and Lyttelton to be brothers. By now his repertoire had expanded, not only including lesser known Ellington pieces, but even The Champ from Dizzy Gillespie's band book. The Lyttelton band – he saw himself primarily as a leader – helped develop the careers of many now prominent British musicians, including Tony Coe and Alan Barnes. In 2001, Lyttelton and his band added trad jazz elements to the experimental Radiohead song "Life in a Glasshouse" on the Amnesiac album.

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