Well, it’s Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday which gives me four excuses to post this lovely old record made by Humphey Lyttelton’s Paseo Jazz Band in the early Fifties. That’s the band that featured Humph’s regular crew alongside a number of London’s marvellous West Indian musicians of the time, hence the abundance of percussion and the resulting infectious calypso beat. I’ve posted this before but the link died, so here it is again. Enjoy!
Well, it’s Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday which gives me four excuses to post this lovely old record made by Humphey Lyttelton’s Paseo Jazz Band in the early Fifties. That’s the band that featured Humph’s regular crew alongside a number of London’s marvellous West Indian musicians of the time, hence the abundance of percussion and the resulting infectious calypso beat. Enjoy!
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Humphrey Lyttelton, who died on 25th April 2008
Today is a rather sad anniversary: it’s ten years to the day since the death of Humphrey Lyttelton. I posted a tribute to him here and have posted quite a few other items about Humph and his band (under this tag), including one that included this picture of my Dad (who died in 2007 and who was a lifelong fan of Humph) playing the drums with him in a pub in Newcastle:
I was reminded about Humph by the ongoing saga of this the UK Government’s scandalous treatment of the Windrush generation, who came to Britain from the West Indies in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Their arrival coincided with the rise of Humph’s career as a musician and bandleader; he started recording a long series of 78s for the Parlophone labour in late 1949. In the mid-50s Humph formed what he called his Paseo Jazz Band with a group of London-based Caribbean musicians and they made some lovely records, complete with infectious calypso rhythms. In his first volume of autobiography, I Play As I Please Humph wrote very frankly about the racism faced by these black musicians, even from Jazz fans. It is indeed hard to see how anyone can be a jazz fan and have such attitudes, but some people seem to manage it. Humph was one of those who welcomed this generation of immigrants with open arms, and in his book he argued strongly against racial prejudice. If he’d been alive today he would have had no time for the xenophobic attitudes espoused by the current Government that have created such a hostile environment in the UK for anyone deemed to be foreign.
Anyway, some time ago I came across this film from 1950 showing Humph’s band in full swing (playing King Oliver’s Snake Rag, a tune guaranteed to fill the dance floor) at a downstairs club on Oxford Street in London. Jazz was very much for dancing to in those days, and the opportunity to let the hair down and burn some leather on the floor must have been a welcome distraction from post-war austerity. As the voice-over says, the drinks on sale in the club were non-alcoholic, but I’m told a van used to turn up and sell beer surreptitiously outside…
Rest in peace, Humph. We still miss you.
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In the Dark 