This photograph of Humphrey Lyttelton, who died today, aged 86, is nicked from The Guardian web site, who in turn, nicked it from the BBC, with attribution, of course. The photograph shows Humph exactly as he was when I last met him, just under a year ago, at a charity jazz concert, which he has given for the last several years at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
If you look at it, you can see, behind the glasses the twinkle in his eye. And as I gazed at it, I was conscious of my debt to him. I first ‘met’ him in 1955 when, aged 21, I had moved to London in the hope of finding a life, which was more interesting and inspiring than what I had so far experienced in Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
In those years, I did not really ‘meet’ him. I was sweating on the dance floor at 100 Oxford Street, being liberated by the music of the band, led by Humph on the trumpet. As you will read in the honest obituaries, including that by George Melly, his fellow British jazz musician, and his dear friend, Humph does not quite rank in the world jazz greats, although he was extremely professional and more than competant on the trumpet and the clarinet, as well as in band leading.
But, for me, Humph was my first experience of high quality jazz live. Which is as different an experience as jazz listened to on the radio or the record player, as is watching Match of the Day on the television, compared with being at ‘the match’. But as I got to know him, through chatting to him, after the annual charity concerts he did for the Royal Free Hospital, I realised that my greatest debt to him, is that he helped to form my political opinions. Because he knew that jazz was the music of the oppressed classes in the United States, part of the long struggle of America’s blacks to free themselves from slavery. Not surprising that so many jazz musicians died early of drug over-doses. But Humph, although he identified with their cry for freedom, was protected from self-destruction, by his own very priveldged background. About which more later.
But as I gaze at his photograph, I realise that my debt to more than I have said. Because, although I am an enthusiastic listener, I have no musical abilities. But I do have a sense of humour, which is, as I now realise, is in part unconsciously modelled, on his example. It is laconic and ironic, with not a small element of self-deprecation. Quite often, his jokes were delivered in a dead pan style, so that you were not sure whether he was joking or being entirely serious. Unless, you noticed the twinkle in his eye. But, since he was so successful in radio comedy programmes, he must also have developed the ability, to speak with a twinkle in his voice.
In this obituary I want to pay tribute to his qualities as a human being. His contributions to jazz and broadcast comedy will be covered in other obituaries by people better qualified to speak on such subjects.
He came from a highly priviledged family.To find out just how priviledged that family was you will you have to go to the Wikepedia biog of his cousin, Oliver Lyttelton, who I also encountered on my voyage through life. There you will find that his ancestors include the Grenvilles, who helped to save Britain from the Spandiards with their tiny ship, the Revenge. And also the Spencers, who gave us Winston Spencer Churchill, as well as Princess Di, who became the People’s Princess, but who actually came from a family far more distinguished in British history, than the upstart Germans, of whom our dear Queen is a descendant.
(Far from being a commoner, Princess Di, was upper drawer. Although quite as mixed up in her own personal identity as Charles, the older man who fell in love with her, she provided Brits and the world with the fairy story of a dream wedding, that excelled Hollywood as a propaganda message for the the triumpth of romantic love, regularised by Holy Matrimony. That marriage went wrong, and even this year, the father of her last lover, Mohammed al Fayed, has been trying to persuade an inquest jury, that she was murdered by the British establishment, who were not prepared to stomach her marriage to a Muslim. In fact, the British establishment did not care two hoots about whom Princess Di married. Although, they might have had some strong views, if Prince Charles, had decided to marry a Musilm for his second marriage, instead of his chosen stalwart of the county classes, Camilla Parker Bowles.)
Humph, I think, would not mind me including these digressions in his obituary.
Because in our conversations I challenged what he said to me. Including his oft repeated comment to gentlemen of the press, that he was a ‘romantic socialist’, a typical example of his self deprecation. He was in fact a serious practical socialist, who stuck with the beliefs that he had adopted, despite his highly Conserative family. His dad was a master at Eton. But Humph did not fill his band, with old Etonians, he filled his band with the best musicians.
Quite unlike that other Old Etonian, David Cameron, who is filling his shadow cabinet with fellow old Etonians, in the belief that these are the best people to govern England in the twenty-first century.
Humph, by contrast, was still doing developing talent irrespective of class background, in the years I knew him at his charity Royal Free Concerts. Bringing on good young musicians, because they were good musicians.
I also talked with Humph about his cousin, Oliver, who was a close friend of Winston Churchill, and one of the last British ‘colonial secretaries’, and went on after politics to become a business tycoon, as head of one of Britain’s then biggest electrical companies. In that job he was a disaster, and his reign opened the way for Lord Weinstock to grab AEI and most of the electrical industry in the interests of profit, but aided by the Wilson Labour government.
Oliver Lyttelton, by then enobled as Lord Chandos, went on from that commercial disaster to bring the arts to the South Bank of the Thames, so that all Londoners could go to high quality theatre, and in theaters whose acoustics were so much better than those in the West End, that you can actually hear what the actors say.
Humph, when he found himself performing jazz in the Lyttelton theatre on the South Bank, made one of his characteristic jokes, by saying it was his first appearance in the theatre which had been named after him. Quite how many of his audience saw the real joke I don’t know. But they all laughed, as audiences were prone to do at Humph’s jokes.
But that joke says a lot about Humph and about the British establishment and British elites. Humph came from the old British elite. He had the same education as his older cousin, Oliver, who went on from Eton to Cambridge, but unlike him, he went to work after school in the steel works in Port Talbot in South Wales. That experience led him, working cheek to cheek with the lower classes, to become a socialist.
Later, when the Second World War broke out, he followed the family tradition and like his cousin Oliver, served in the Grenadier Guards and saw serious action. But when he came out of the war he was still a socialist, despite his communion in the mess with the officers of one of Britain’s most elite regiments. And unlike many other socialists, he turned down the offer of a knighthood.
Humph is being written about widely today because he was a very good jazz musician. But also because he understood, and adopted the political message of jazz. Which in my view led him to socialism. He also was a very successful comedy broadcaster, but his jests also conveyed the views he held.
The news of his death came to me while I was doing battle with the present ruling elite of Britain, the US and other parts of the world. The likes of Rupert Murdoch and Vint Cerf, who according to Google is ‘the founding father of the internet’. Has Google not heard of Tim Berners Lee?
The difference between Humph and young James Murdoch, is that young James does not seem to realise that he is a fully paid up member of the present British elite. Young James is still fighting his father’s battles. And Rupert, when he tried to buy British newspapers, did get short shift from the then ruling British newspaper elites.
Which hurt him. But it is so long ago, that it might as well have been in the Stone Age. Today’s powerful elites are the Rupert Murdochs and the new immensely rich Google type internet entrepreneurs.
This obituary is a faithful reflection of the man Hunphrey Lyttelton, whom I met and talked with. But it must end, with that part of his legacy which will go on forever. His music. My computer nouse is so inadequate that I cannot put some of his music on my blog.
But I can conclude with a picture, nicked from Wikipedia, which shows his total professional absorption in playing the trumpet.
Which he did rather well.
