Jazz musician Humphrey Lyttleton dies, 86

Humphrey Lyttelton, 86, Host of a BBC Radio Game Show, Dies

Source: nytimes.com

LONDON [England] (AP) — Humphrey Lyttelton, a jazz trumpeter and

broadcaster who was host of the surreal BBC Radio game show “I’m Sorry

I Haven’t a Clue,” died here on Friday [April 25, 2008]. He was 86.

The performer’s Web site, humphreylyttelton.com, said Mr. Lyttelton

died at a London hospital after surgery. It did not give further

details.

Born into a prominent British family and educated at the elite Eton

College, Mr. Lyttelton was a jazz fanatic who taught himself to play

the trumpet as a teenager. He became an accomplished musician — Louis

Armstrong once called him Britain’s best trumpeter — and made a series

of records for EMI with his Lyttelton Band.

He toured with the band well into his 80s and made a guest appearance

on the Radiohead track “Life in a Glass House” in 2001. The jazz

trumpeter Digby Fairweather told the BBC that Mr. Lyttelton “was, in

the best possible way, a jazz machine.”

But for many he was best known as the host of “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a

Clue,” a role he had filled since 1972. The program built up a

passionate following with its mix of silliness, wordplay and

innuendo.

Mr. Lyttelton was a master of ribald double-entendres — usually

involving the show’s fictitious scorekeeper, “the lovely Samantha” —

delivered in his deadpan, upper-class voice. He was also famous for

his imaginative sign-offs, which would begin, for example, “As the

delicate mayfly of time collides with the speeding windscreen of

fate.”

His varied career included World War II service in the Grenadier

Guards and a stint as a cartoonist for The Daily Mail. He also wrote

books about music.