The Jazzman
Like many ex-servicemen, Lyttelton received a grant for further study. He went to Camberwell School of Art, where he met Wally Fawkes, a fellow jazz enthusiast and clarinet-player. It was Wally who, in 1949, helped him to get the job with the Daily Mail, at first writing the words for Flook, Fawkes's comic strip.
They had both joined the George Webb Dixielanders in 1947. Webb was an important catalyst in the British post-war jazz boom.
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 United States. In 1956, he had his only pop chart hit, with the Joe Meek-produced recording of "Bad Penny Blues", which was in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. As the trad jazz 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, including not only 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 traditional jazz elements to the Radiohead song "Life in a Glasshouse" on the Amnesiac album.
On 11 March 2008, he announced that he would cease presenting BBC Radio 2's "Best of Jazz", after 40 years.
On 23 July 2008, Lyttelton was posthumously named as BBC Radio 2 Jazz Artist Of The Year, voted by radio listeners.
Read more about this topic: Humphrey Lyttelton