Band Biog

In January 2008, Humphrey Lyttelton will celebrate sixty unbroken years as a bandleader, with a band which he ranks as one of the very best of his career. Its hallmark is versatility, reflected in a repertoire which extends from early traditional to modern, by way of Ellington and Basie. The band's range is also shown by the cast-list of artists whom it has accompanied on disc or in special presentations over the years, among them instrumentalists Buck Clayton and Buddy Tate, singers Jimmy Rushing, Marie Knight, Big Joe Turner, Elkie Brooks, Helen Shapiro, Tina May and Stacey Kent. Perhaps surprising is a single-track appearance on a CD by the esoteric pop group, Radiohead, recorded in July 2000. The track is called "Life In a Glass House". The band has had, over the years, many distinguished arrangers, among them Kenny Graham, Buck Clayton, Harry South, Eddie Harvey and, most prolific of all, Pete Strange, whom Humph introduced on-stage as 'our staff arranger'. Not to be forgotten are Humph's own compositions, of which he has recorded well over two hundred, including 'the medley of his hit', Bad Penny Blues. Add to the above the leader's own witty and informative commentaries, and it's little surprise that the prevailing reaction from audiences is 'We never thought a jazz concert could have such variety!'. The most important ingredients are, of course, THE MUSICIANS, all stars in their own right …
HUMPHREY LYTTELTON … First picked up a trumpet in 1936, carried it in a sandbag on to the Salerno beachhead in 1943, took it into George Webb’s Dixielanders in 1947, blew it in the presence of Louis Armstrong in 1948 – Louis said ‘That boy’s really comin’ on’ – and has never since let it out of his sight. He also plays clarinet and, occasionally, tenor horn.
ROBERT FOWLER, tenor sax, baritone sax and clarinet…began his musical career in Bristol , while he was studying graphic design. Work with a variety of local bands, often sitting in with visiting solo stars of the calibre of Danny Moss and Roy Williams, eventually put the design career on hold when he became a popular attraction in his own right. Over recent years, he has played regularly with the Humphrey Lyttelton band, deputizing variously for Kathy Stobart, Jimmy Hastings and Karen Sharp. After a long wait of almost Gordon Brown proportions and the departure of Karen for fresh pastures, he has become a full-time member, bringing with him enormous experience in bands ranging from the Pasadena Roof Orchestra through the swinging Back to Basie Orchestra to the adventurous Alan Barnes Octet. On whichever instrument he chooses to pick up, he has shown himself a show-stopper!
JIMMY HASTINGS... alto sax, clarinet and flute … auditioned for Humphrey Lyttelton’s band when Tony Coe left in the early Sixties. Then primarily a tenor saxist, he had to borrow Tony Coe's alto for the audition, which may be why he wasn't immediately accepted. Since then he has become one of the most highly respected musicians on the British music scene, in demand for session and theatre work as well as many jazz assignments in top bands both large and small. He finally joined the band in the mid-Nineties. Humph says, ‘Thirty-odd years may seem like a long time to mull over an audition, but one doesn’t rush into these things!" Jimmy's versatility is now a prime asset.
RAY WORDSWORTH... trombone …. was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. By the age of ten he was playing trombone with the Rawmarsh Brass Band and, at fourteen, gigging with a local jazz band. It's little wonder that he turned professional on leaving school and began a career which took him from work with Joe Daniels, Sid Phillips, Ken MacIntosh and other name bands to the Principal Trombone chair in the BBC Radio Orchestra. His route into the Humph band in 2004 has taken in bands from Freddie Randall to Stan Tracey and studio work has equipped him with a bagful of stellar names from Sinatra downwards, which, but for his natural modesty, he could scatter like confetti. All of which can be summed up in two words - talent and experience!
TED BEAMENT, piano … was self-taught in his youth, he studied with bassist and teacher Peter Ind. In his own words, he sidled into, rather than burst upon, the London jazz scene. For many years he did gigs with his own trio and with other freelance groups, reaching a point when many top international musicians were happy to have him supporting them. He is also a superb and sensitive accompanist, as singers Maxine Daniels and Helen Shapiro have readily testified. Over the years he has played frequently with Lyttelton band colleagues Adrian Macintosh and Paul Bridge, but when he himself joined the band in early 1995, it was his first-ever job with a regular working band; an extraordinary fact which he puts down to being a ‘late-developer’!
JOHN REES-JONES, double bass…was classically trained as a cellist, toured and recorded as such with Keith Tippet’s CENTIPEDE, an early cross-over group, and subsequently appeared with, among others, Yehudi Menuhin and Peter Pears. He moved over to double bass and bass guitar in the late 1970s. A list of those with whom he has worked in jazz and also theatre music (in nineteen countries) would constitute a show-business encyclopedia. In all of this he has found time to act as visiting teacher of jazz double bass and bass guitar at Eton College and to tutor several hundred jazz workshops nationwide. Now, after deputising frequently with Humphrey Lyttelton’s band in recent times, he brings his vast experience to the band on a permanent basis (‘the permanent bassist, in other words, and I get that in before he does!’ H.L.)
ADRIAN MACINTOSH, drums … came to London from Yorkshire in the 1960's, where he soon became much in demand as freelance. His musical associations, national and international are too numerous to list here. He became a member of the Humphrey Lyttelton band in 1982 and, within a year, was joined in the rhythm section by Paul Bridge. The rapport between then did much to create the most swinging rhythm team in town. When Ted Beament came into the band in the mid-Nineties, that rapport was further enhanced, leading to a trio with the versatility to work as a band unit and as a group in its own right. That group, called Trio Time, has recorded successfully for the Calligraph label proving that, when the ingredients are right, you can have your cake and eat it!
JO FOOKS, tenor saxophone and flute…first met Humphrey Lyttelton in her birthplace, Edinburgh, when she was a fifteen-year-old playing tenor saxophone in the West Lothian Big Band. She had just won the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year Award of 1992, and impressed both Humph and Acker Bilk when she played at a ‘seminar’ held by them during the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. In 2005, she sent Humph her debut CD, ‘Here and Now’, revealing that since that meeting in Edinburgh, she had studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London and at Berkley in America, played in the orchestra for West Side Story at an opera Festival in South Africa, toured with the contemporary dance company, Flying Gorillas and, after moving South, established herself on the London gig scene. As a result of her CD the circle of events was completed when she appeared alongside Acker Bilk as a guest with Humph’s band at the Edinburgh Jazz festival 2006, thereafter joining his now eight-piece band as a permanent member.