In the Dark

“Only connect” is EM Forster’s best known adage about writing, though he didn’t mean it in the context of a “shitty WordPress blog”. Nevertheless I do find it fun sometimes to connect disparate things, so here goes.

I was doing a turn in the garden this afternoon when I noticed that an old bucket left here by the previous occupant had corroded enough to develop a hole:

This reminded me of the old song My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It and especially this very enjoyable version of it by Humphrey Lyttelton’s 1954 seven-piece live at the Conway Hall in London.

It’s hard to believe that it’s 18 years since Humph passed away, but it’s great to hear his voice again in the introduction to the track which ends the A side of the album Humph at the Conway. The cartoon on the cover is by him too. The record features Humph on trumpet, the clarinet by Wally Fawkes (who plays the first clarinet solo) and Bruce Turner on alto sax who switches to clarinet for the second solo but plays sax in the ensembles which sound absolutely terrific as a result. Many “trad” jazz fans took against Humph for including a saxophonist in his band, but Bruce Turner was a great musician and added a new dimension. The other members of the band were Johnny Parker (piano), Micky Ashman (bass), Freddy Legon (banjo) and George Hopkinson (drums).

So that’s one connection. Another is that yesterday saw the announcement of the King’s Birthday Honours in the UK, which was not covered widely here in in Ireland, but which independently reminded me that Humphrey Lyttelton turned down a knighthood on principle back in 1995. Good for him!

This entry was posted on June 14, 2026 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Biographical, Jazz, Maynooth with tags Humph at the Conway, Humphrey Lyttelton, Jazz, King's Birthday Honours, My Bucket's Got a Hole in It. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.