It’s been a sad year for jazz in Britain.

First the loss of George Melly, then the closure of the DAB radio station The Jazz and now the death of Humphrey Littleton.

For almost as long as I can remember there’s been a Humph. In the 1970’s, sitting at the kitchen table, it was his voice on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, a programme he chaired until his death. Much like Kenneth Horne on Round the Horne he was the school master straight man at the centre of comic madness evolving around him as he grew into the best of grumpy old men. He missed the last live performance a few days ago but sent a recorded message. “I can’t be with you tonight as I am in hospital. I wish I’d thought of this before”.

A few years later Humph was with me as I drove in my first car to gigs on a Monday night. By then I’d given up the violin as a bad lot and his programme The Best of Jazz was a companion and a guide to the new world of jazz. Sadly he gave up the show recently frustrated by the non-jazz trails that he was later forced to make room for every week in the broadcast.

I guess the world can be divided into two. Those who knew Humph as the guardian of Samantha on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, “Samantha does a few chores for an elderly gentleman who lives nearby. She shows him how to use the washing machine and then prunes his fruit trees. Later he’ll hang out his pyjamas as he watches her beaver away up the ladder”, and those he knew him as the jazz musician.

Luckily I knew of both and met and worked with some of his alumni of musicians. My time with people like Bruce Turner and Malcolm Everson were full of tales about Humph. He protected his private life by changing his phone number if someone discovered it and had his house built in the shape of a square with the windows facing in but his love of his music and loyalty to those he saw potential in helped nurture and develop many careers ranging from Helen Shapiro to Stacey Kent. In 2001 he even played with Radiohead, appearing on their track Life In A Glasshouse and performing live with them at Glastonbury.

I guess that sums up a lot about jazz in this country. Despite all the adversity it somehow survives. It appears when you least expect it and in the oddest places. From Humph’s Bad Penny Blues (the only jazz track to make it into the UK singles chart) to Radiohead through to his radio work the very essence of the man was fun and music.

As it currently says on his website :

“As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication.

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, trumpeter, clarinettist, bandleader, broadcaster, writer, journalist and calligrapher born May 23 1921; died April 25 2008