[Dixielandjazz] Hmphrey Lyttelton's NY Times Obit.

[Stephen G Barbone]

April 28, 2008 - NY TIMES - by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Humphrey Lyttelton, 86, Host of a BBC Radio Game Show, Dies

LONDON (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. 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.