Tuesday 12 January 2010

1355 Humphrey Lyttelton, 100 Oxford Street, The sum of all fears

09.00 The radio news this morning announced the death of Humphrey Lyttleton, at the age of 86. I have this image of George Melly greeting him at the Gates, saying what took you so long man. It's just as difficult to get a gig up here as it was down there, but I did get one show the other day with Louis and the Hot Seven, and there is a hot joint along Celestial Way that said if you want to lead the house band and take over the their daily broadcast hour with an audience of twenty billion, the job is yours.

The usual image of a jazz man is someone hyperactive, unconventional, with many wives and a liking for illegal substances. Humphrey Lyttleton had a very different image, a laid back patrician, as a younger man, the second son of the 8th Viscount Cobham who was a house master at Eton. Humphrey, or Humph as he was affectionately called went to the Sunningdale Preparatory school before Eton College where he was the junior(fag) for Lord Carrington, He became interested in jazz after hearing records of Louis Armstrong and Nat Gonella and formed a college quartet in which Ludovic Kennedy played the drums. He had a short period at a plate works in Wales which turned him into a romantic socialist and then as was customary with Eton men he joined the Guards, the Grenadiers, seeing action in Salerno in World War II. On VE day he went onto London Streets with his trumpet and his playing was captured by a BBC roving reporter. He then went to Camberwell Art college and in 1949 he joined the Daily Mail as a Cartoonist joining forces with jazz clarinettist Wally Fawkes to create the strip cartoon Flook. Later he became a kindly grandfather with a wicked sense of humour introducing a weekly jazz programme and as chairman of an itinerant spoof panel show which filled theatre audiences around the country.

20.00 I had intended to finish writing about Hump before going to the match but the repaired camcorder arrived so I was able to go out for the Daily Mail. I had was led to believe that the day would be warm as well as sunny but here it was cloudy with a temperature reducing wind. I called in at the supermarket on my way back for milk, tomatoes and the like but added a nutty brown loaf when one was discovered. I decided on some sorting out and then lunch and then it going off to the match time taking a flask of coffee with me. Being the Tees Wear Derby there would be a big crowd 45000, in fact, and I nearly miscalculated the time in that I managed one of the last couple of parking spaces available and then relaxed with the paper and the coffee. I left the car for the ground in time to take a peek inside the new ten lane Olympic size swimming pool, high diving facilities and fitness centre. It has been designed for use by the likes of you and me through the week with a programme of swimming and fitness activities. There was no one using any of the 140 odd fitness machines though.
17.00 It proved to be a exciting and enjoyable game although it began ominously as for the second week running a goal was conceded in the opening few minutes but this time the joy of the away supporters was shortlived and we equalised within a minute and then just before the end of the first half we took the lead again. There were several opportunities to extend the lead after the interval and the Boro also had their chances and converted one with about 20 minutes in the match left. As has been a feature of the man we won with seconds of extra to go which broke the hearts of the Boro players as well as their splendid travelling fans who belie the failure to fill their ground. They deserve success given thee strong and loyal heart of their Chairman Steve Gibson, but only as third to the Black Cats and the Toon alternating as Champions now that is celestial fantasy, especially as the other two each year would win one or more of Cups. On reflection in such a scenario the Boro could have the Premier championship the year we won the Champions League Cup. Fantasy of course except that in London there is Chelsea and Arsenal, Spurs and the their like.

21.00 Last night I passed the time away before bedtime with a martial arts film set in the USA in which a maverick police detective joins forces with Samurai type of assassin to rid the streets of drug dealing protection racket gangs with the ubiquitous corrupt senior police officer. I was in the mood. The film has Blade in its title

The previous evening the Arts channel was showing a film which I thought I had seen before called 8 ½ women. In fact the film is about an exceptionally wealthy business man John Standing and his son who after watching Fellini's 8 ½ decide to recruit a private harem each one with distinguishing characteristic from the other. The film I thought was being shown was 8 Femmes, the French comedy murder mystery, which I saw in theatre. 8 ½ Women is a film about intellectual sex where the question "who is really in charge of the asylum." is the plot? However there is no emotional engagement, but this may be just me.

Tonight I watched again The Sum of All Fears in which Ben Afflick saves the world in a tale created by Tom Clancy. The message in this film is that there were known to be 27000 thermo nuclear weapons in the world, and that one went missing, an Israeli rocket bomb which contained USA plutonium secretly provided and which falls into the hands of a neo Nazi group of high placed official on both sides of the former cold war anxious to return to the good old bad days. The other message is that the USA and Russian Presidents are good guys, but who have to go to the point of being prepared to use their weapons rather than lose face. Fortunately there are two kindly father figures high up in intelligence who keep each other informed of what is really going on behind all the public posturing designed to keep ahead of all those trying to take power in the two lands. I cannot wait for the China V rest of the world and winning films to begin.

22.00 100 Oxford Street is a basement, the most famous basement in the central London, perhaps in the UK, and which opened in 1942 during World War II as a facility to show the talents of the sons of Victor Feldman. During the rest of war it became a haunt for visiting GI's who wanted to listen to jazz and to dance and among those performing was Glen Miller with several members of his band. The basement was considered as good as any bomb shelter. After the war it became the London jazz club with sessions on Saturdays and Mondays for the dance music of day (Swing and the Jitterbug) with the Sunday session changing to bebop. By one of the great pieces of good fortune in my life Humphrey Littleton's agent acquired the lease just before I left school and 100 Oxford Street became The Humphrey Lyttleton Club or Humphs providing traditional jazz on seven nights of each and every week. There was a period when I longed to be able to live in Soho and go to clubs every other night if not every night of the week with my clarinet of course until eventually being asked to join a band. Louis Armstrong played there in 1956, and Billie Holliday was in the audience for a session with Alex Welsh band with Beryl Bryden. I saw Chris Barber at the club but because of the boom in traditional jazz popularity he had become too big to appear there and the main regulars were Acker Bilk, Terry Lightfoot and Kenny Ball.

The Club became the 100 as USA artists commenced to come over in number many played or visited the club including Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rushin, Bo Diddley and BB King. My era of visiting came to and end as the club moved into its own new era with Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll, John Mayall's Blues Breakers, the Animals, the Who, the Kinks, The Pretty Things and Spencer Davis. Wild Bill Davidson, George Lewis who I did see there and Earl Hines. Ken Colyer also played here after giving up his own Club in Soho which I had also visited. The Club went through hard times but adapted switching to Punk (Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, Buzzcocks and the Damned), and then the emphasis changed to African Jazz and Township Music. In the 1982 the Rolling Stones played there, in secret session and in the 1990's the Club moved into the Indie scene and to Comedy Nights. However there were also appearances of Chris Barber and Humphrey Lyttleton. George Melly made his last performance there with moments included in his telebiography.

In 1954, a year before I left school, Humph did a show at the Royal Festival Hall with Johnny Pickard on Trombone, Wally Fawkes and Mickey Ashman on base. I have the 10" LP which includes eight of the numbers played that night including Basin Street, I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate and When the Saints Go Marching In. My first visit to the R.F. H was to listen to the Modern Jazz Quartet as guest of the sister of the work friend who introduced me to the world of live jazz performances. It was also the era when I had joined the American Embassy Library and was borrowing records such as Menotti, the Telephone and recorded music of the Southern Plantations. Lyttleton also moved away from Trad jazz although in 1956 Bad Penny Blues reached the UK singles charts and stayed in for six weeks. He formed a special relationship with Buck Clayton who regarded him a soul brother. I have their LP Me and Buck, the title of one of the Eight numbers with Autumn Leaves, Stardust, and Sentimental Journey my favourites. Danny Moss was the tenor sax and Joe Temperley Baritone. I also have a hardback edition of his autobiography I play as I please. He had some popularity in the USA and in 1968 at the request of NASA he visited to broadcast live to the crew of the Apollo 8 Space craft.

In addition to continuing to play his music for more than 40 years he was the radio voice of British Jazz in his weekly "Best of Jazz" series and which he only stopped when his health recently deteriorated. For most people however it was not the musician or Jazz authority that they came to know and love but as the Chairman of the comedy panel radio show, "I'm sorry I Haven't a Clue" in which he encouraged silliness and harmless double entendres which became so successful that it could fill major theatres around the UK.

Helen Shapiro was a 60's pop star with "Walkin back to Happiness a hit when she was only 14. She developed into amazing jazz singer and went on tour with Humph in the 1990's. I hoped to get to one of their concerts but missed out. I also missed out on seeing him perform with Elkie Brooks although I have her Pearl's a Singer albums ad saw her perform twice at Newcastle City Hall. She was nearly as loud as U2 UK.

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