Flook was a British comic strip which ran from 1949 to 1984 in the Daily Mail newspaper. It was drawn by Wally Fawkes (of the jazz group Wally Fawkes and the Troglodytes), who signed the strips as "Trog".
97-503: Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (23 May 1921 – 25 April 2008), also known as Humph , was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family . Having taught himself the trumpet at school, Lyttelton became a professional musician, leading his own eight-piece band, which recorded a hit single, " Bad Penny Blues ", in 1956. As a broadcaster, he presented BBC Radio 2 's The Best of Jazz for forty years, and hosted
194-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
291-536: A Flook toy. The ironic and bohemian ethos that the strip came to develop was notably at variance with the conservatism of the Daily Mail , which finally discontinued it after some 10,000 episodes, reportedly because the editor David English objected to its repeated jabs at Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (though she is said to have enjoyed it), and the strip's covert criticism of the Mail ' s championing of
388-564: A banner with the words "Go Home Dirty Bopper!" was prominently unfolded. Occasionally, with the help of Eddie Harvey , he assembled a big band for BBC broadcasts and records. In 1957 and 1958 blues singer Jimmy Rushing toured England with the band, as did Clayton, Vic Dickenson and Big Joe Turner in 1965. Clayton recorded with Lyttelton in the early 1960s and toured with the band on numerous occasions. Clayton considered himself and Lyttelton to be brothers. He also recorded with visiting Americans Al Casey , Buddy Tate , and Kenny Davern . He
485-453: A daughter, Stephen (born 1955) and David (born 1958), and Georgina (born 1963). Despite his celebrity, he was intensely private. He designed his house in Arkley , Barnet, Greater London, with blank walls on the outside and the windows opening onto an internal courtyard. He hated using the telephone and kept his number ex-directory, changing it if anybody else discovered it. Given his dislike of
582-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
679-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
776-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
873-1105: A long established professional relationship with UK singer Elkie Brooks . After working together in the early 1960s they rekindled their working partnership in early 2000 with a series of sold-out and well-received concert performances. In early 2000, the band played on the track "Life in a Glasshouse" on Radiohead 's album Amnesiac , released the following year. In 2003, they released the critically acclaimed album Trouble in Mind and continued to perform occasional concerts. Lyttelton introduced American vocalist Stacey Kent to British audiences. Lyttelton's last band featured, apart from himself on trumpet and clarinet: Ray Wordsworth on trombone; Jimmy Hastings on alto sax, clarinet and flute; Jo Fooks on tenor saxophone and flute; Rob Fowler on tenor sax, baritone sax and clarinet; Ted Beament on piano; John Rees-Jones on double bass and Adrian Macintosh on drums. His last formal recordings, one track each on trumpet and clarinet, appeared on his last CD 'Cornucopia 3', (CLG CD 46) all of which he supervised. Trumpet on
970-432: A lot of pressure on him to accept, seeing it as recognition for all his work." On 18 April 2008, Jon Naismith , the producer of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue , announced the cancellation of the spring series due to Lyttelton's hospitalisation to repair an aortic aneurysm . Rob Brydon and others were asked to deputise for Lyttelton during the tour shows, but Lyttelton postponed his operation and managed to perform on all but
1067-482: A mad retired colonel . The strip was initially written by Douglas Mount, a Daily Mail employee. Mount left the Mail with little warning and subsequently the strip's authorship was taken up by the Australian journalist Robert Raymond . In his memoir Giving Luck a Chance , Raymond describes the way in which Fawkes brought him on board as Flook' s author in 1949. Fawkes invited Raymond into his office, where he
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#17328016943551164-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
1261-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
1358-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
1455-439: A striking resemblance to leading politicians and celebrities. Many of their adventures starred their principal adversaries, the villainous Moses Maggot (who, for the purposes of North American syndication, was renamed Mossy Mildew) and his sidekick the gaolbird Douglas Bodger, whose sister – the overweight teenage witch Lucretia Bodger (a play on Lucretia Borgia ), with her cat, Gobstopper – also appeared quite frequently, as did
1552-410: A young boy called Rufus and his magical animal friend, Flook. According to the strip 'The Coming of Flook', which forms part of the cartoon book Rufus and Flook v. Moses Maggot , we learn that Flook, who vaguely resembled a furry pig walking on his hind legs, was a creature from the age of the dinosaurs whom Rufus, in a dream, rescued from cavemen and who then came back to waking reality with him. Flook
1649-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
1746-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
1843-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
1940-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
2037-482: Is played by Tony Fisher with occasional guest spots by singer Sue Richardson and ex–Lytteltonians such as Karen Sharp . From 1967 until April 2007, Lyttelton presented The Best of Jazz on BBC Radio 2 , a programme that featured his idiosyncratic mix of recordings from all periods of the music's history, including current material. In 2007 he chose to cut his commitment to two quarterly seasons per year, in order to spend more time on other projects. In 1972 Lyttelton
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#17328016943552134-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
2231-566: The 8th Viscount Cobham ), was a house master. (As a male-line descendant of Charles Lyttelton, Lyttelton was in remainder to both the Viscountcy Cobham and the Barony of Lyttelton .) From Sunningdale Preparatory School , Lyttelton duly progressed to Eton College . He was a first cousin of the 10th Viscount Cobham and of Viola Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and a great-nephew of the politician and sportsman Alfred Lyttelton ,
2328-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
2425-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
2522-599: The Joe Meek -produced recording of " Bad Penny Blues ", which was in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. Over time, Lyttelton gradually shifted to a more mainstream approach favoured by American musicians such as trumpeter Buck Clayton . By 1953 he had begun to add saxophonists to the lineup. On one occasion in that year, the development did not meet with the approval of his fans. At a Birmingham Town Hall concert at which alto saxophonist Bruce Turner debuted,
2619-411: The 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in
2716-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
2813-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
2910-638: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
3007-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
Humphrey Lyttelton - Misplaced Pages Continue
3104-464: The East Wing?' 'I haven't any idea,' I said, 'but give me a day or so and I'll think of something'. Following Raymond's departure in 1953, authors were Compton Mackenzie , singer and writer George Melly , the comedian Barry Took , the musician Humphrey Lyttelton and the film critic Barry Norman . Several book-length episodes and compilations were published, and the Daily Mail also marketed
3201-645: The George Webb Dixielanders in 1947. Webb was an important catalyst in the British postwar jazz boom. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949. To do so he had to break with the Musicians' Union restrictive practices which forbade working with jazz musicians from the United States. In 1956, he had his only pop chart hit, with
3298-479: The Mail out of this jam the scriptwriting job was mine. I paced up and down a few times. 'Right! Here's what we do. The old boy says: Make yourselves at home while I'm away, boys, but - ' The phone rang again. 'Leave the receiver off', said Wally, glancing at the clock and starting to letter the caption in the balloon. 'But what?' '-BUT STAY OUT OF THE EAST WING!' 'Great!' said Wally, lettering rapidly. 'What's in
3395-620: The Royal Academy of Music. The Lyttelton Arms pub, opposite Mornington Crescent station in Camden, is named after Lyttelton. It was formerly named The Southampton Arms. Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since
3492-672: The St Marylebone Crematorium (which shares grounds with East Finchley Cemetery ) in East Finchley , north London. Lyttelton regarded himself as a Humanist. On 25 April 2010, two years after Lyttelton's death, a celebratory concert entitled "Humphrey Lyttelton — A Celebration Concert" was held at the Hammersmith Apollo to celebrate his life, works and contribution to music. Singer Elkie Brooks and many prominent British jazz musicians appeared at
3589-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
3686-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
3783-432: The baritone again for broadcasts and recordings. Lyttelton's mainstream band usually included such established musicians as Jimmy Skidmore , Joe Temperley , Kathy Stobart , Jimmy Hastings , Mike McKenzie , John Barnes , Roy Williams and Pete Strange along with new talent such as Tony Coe , Alan Barnes , John Picard , Karen Sharpe, and Jo Fooks. Lyttelton regarded his band as a family, with some members returning to
3880-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
3977-592: The comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on BBC Radio 4 , becoming the UK's oldest panel game host. Lyttelton was also a cartoonist, collaborating on the long-running Flook series in the Daily Mail , and a calligrapher and president of The Society for Italic Handwriting. Lyttelton was born at Eton College (then in Buckinghamshire ), where his father, George William Lyttelton (second son of
Humphrey Lyttelton - Misplaced Pages Continue
4074-594: The concert, along with panellists from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue . The event was organised and hosted by his son Stephen Lyttelton, who is also the founder and Chairman of The Humph Trust , an organisation set up after his death to support young up and coming jazz musicians and to provide sponsorship and support. The event was opened by the 2010 winner of the Humphrey Lyttelton Royal Academy of Music Jazz Award, Tom Walsh, who played Horace Silver 's " Song for my Father " with his quintet from
4171-448: The controller of Radio 4, Mark Damazer , said: "He's just a colossally good broadcaster and possessed of this fantastic sense of timing. ... It's a very, very sad day but we should celebrate and be very grateful for how much he did for Radio 4, really terrific." Responding to news of Lyttelton's death, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood wrote on the band's website: "We were all sorry to hear of Humphrey Lyttelton's death — he
4268-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
4365-434: The early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
4462-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
4559-569: The early 1980s, not only issues his own albums and those of associates, but also re-issues (on CD ) his analogue recordings for the Parlophone label in the 1950s. He is reported to have turned down a knighthood in 1995. Lyttelton was married twice. His first wife was Patricia Mary Braithwaite (born 1929), whom he married on 19 August 1948. They had one daughter, Henrietta (born 1949). In 1952, following his divorce, he married (Elizabeth) Jill Richardson (1933–2006), with whom he had two sons and
4656-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
4753-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
4850-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
4947-459: The first man to represent England at both football and cricket , both of whom also attended Eton. At Eton, Lyttelton fagged for Lord Carrington and formed his love of jazz . He was inspired by the trumpeters Louis Armstrong (who subsequently referred to Lyttelton as "that cat in England who swings his ass off") and Nat Gonella . He taught himself the instrument, and formed a quartet at
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#17328016943555044-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
5141-554: The fold after periods away and/or staying for long periods (Bruce Turner, Stan Greig , Adrian Macintosh, Stobart, Hastings). The band maintained a busy schedule, frequently performing sold-out shows across the country. Performances occasionally included a guest singer, or a collaboration with another band. During the 1990s the band toured with Helen Shapiro in a series of Humph and Helen concerts. They also featured in several Giants of British Jazz tours with Acker Bilk and George Melly and John Chilton 's Feetwarmers. Lyttelton had
5238-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
5335-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
5432-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
5529-520: The last night. A further email on 21 April 2008 reported that the BBC were "unclear precisely how long Humph's recovery period will be" but Lyttelton was "otherwise fine and in very good spirits". On 22 April 2008, Lyttelton and the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue team were booked to appear in the stage version of the programme at the Pavilion Theatre , Bournemouth . Because of his illness, his place
5626-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
5723-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
5820-553: The manner in which comedy was presented on radio, and Lyttelton's persona was a significant part of that success: he was a straight man surrounded by mayhem. At the time of his death, Lyttelton was the oldest active panel game host in the UK, being two and a half years older than his closest rival, Nicholas Parsons . As well as his other activities, Lyttelton was a keen calligrapher and President of The Society for Italic Handwriting . He named his own record label "Calligraph" after this extracurricular interest. This label, founded in
5917-955: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
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#17328016943556014-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
6111-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
6208-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
6305-467: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
6402-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
6499-502: The other tracks was played by Tony Fisher. He made some recordings as a vocalist. After his death, part of Lyttelton's appearance with his 2007 Band, (with Karen Sharpe instead of Robert Fowler), at the Brecon Jazz Festival , in which he was joined by American tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton was shown by BBCtv as a tribute, ( Humph's Last Stand ). The band continues to give concerts performing his music. The trumpet part
6596-459: The other. On VE Day , 8 May or 9 May 1945, Lyttelton joined in the celebrations by playing his trumpet from a wheelbarrow , inadvertently giving his first broadcast performance; the BBC recording still survives. Following demobilisation after World War II , he attended Camberwell Art College for two years. In 1949, he joined the Daily Mail as a cartoonist , where he remained until 1956. He
6693-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
6790-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
6887-458: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
6984-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
7081-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
7178-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
7275-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
7372-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
7469-776: The school in 1936 that included the future journalist Ludovic Kennedy on drums. After leaving school, Lyttelton spent some time at the Port Talbot steel plate works in South Wales , an experience which led to his becoming what he termed a " romantic socialist ". After being called up for war service, he was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 29 November 1941 alongside future politician Mark Bonham Carter , and saw action at Salerno , Italy , during Operation Avalanche , when he came ashore with his pistol in one hand, and his trumpet in
7566-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
7663-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
7760-425: The telephone, he communicated by post, including letters hiring and firing members of his band. He twice refused state honours which were offered to him. One occasion was in 1976, and in 1994 he declined the knighthood offered by Downing Street: his son Stephen later wrote that "Accepting it was never an option but he still felt sick to the stomach. He kept it from all of us, especially my mother who would have exerted
7857-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
7954-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
8051-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
8148-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
8245-442: Was able to talk (in seven languages) and had a fine sense of irony with which to temper Rufus' innocence and enthusiasm. He was also able to change shape into all manner of objects, though not much was made of this power after the first couple of years of the strip. They inhabited a satirical and socially-perceptive fantasy world not unrelated to contemporary Great Britain , populated by larger-than-life characters, mostly bearing
8342-506: Was an inspiring person to record with, and without his direction, we'd never have recorded/released 'Life in a Glasshouse'. So go and find ' Bad Penny Blues ', and celebrate his life with some hot jazz." Lyttelton is survived by his four children: a daughter from his first marriage to Pat Braithwaite, and two sons and a daughter from his second marriage to Jill Richardson. Richardson, to whom he had been married since 1952, predeceased him in 2006. His Humanist funeral took place on 6 May 2008 at
8439-437: Was being harassed by telephone calls from the production team for the latest daily instalment of the strip. Raymond himself was unemployed at the time: 'Ever written the script for a strip?' Wally enquired casually. 'Can't say I have.' 'Want to have a go? It pays quite well. Seven guineas a week, probably.' He immediately had all my attention. [...] I tried to think of all the strips I had ever read. I knew that if I got
8536-745: Was chosen to host the comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue ( ISIHAC ) on BBC Radio 4 . The show was originally devised as a comedic antidote to traditional BBC panel games (both radio and television), which had come to be seen as dull and formulaic, and in keeping with the staid middle-class "Auntie Beeb" image. Lyttelton continued in this role until shortly before he died, and was known for both his deadpan , disgruntled, and occasionally bewildered style of chairmanship, and for his near-the-knuckle double entendres and innuendo which, despite always being open to an innocent interpretation, were, according to William Rushton , "the filthiest thing on radio". The programme's success had considerable influence on
8633-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
8730-428: Was one of the collaborators with Wally Fawkes on the long-running cartoon strip Flook . Lyttelton received a grant for further study. He went to Camberwell School of Art, where he met Wally Fawkes , a fellow jazz enthusiast and clarinet-player, also known as the cartoonist "Trog". In 1949, Fawkes helped him to get a job with the Daily Mail writing the words for Flook , Fawkes's comic strip. They had both joined
8827-557: Was posthumously named BBC Radio 2 Jazz Artist of the Year, voted by radio listeners. For several years during the postwar period at 100 Oxford Street his regular band included Wally Fawkes, the Christie brothers, Pat Hawes and Johnny Parker. From 1958, Lyttelton's favoured line-up was an eight–piece band with three saxophones (alto, tenor and baritone), although this was reduced to seven occasionally to save money. But he would sometimes add
8924-465: Was reported, members of the public began leaving flowers at Mornington Crescent station . BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 1995 episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue as a tribute on Sunday 27 April, and a retrospective programme presented by Kenneth Clarke on Wednesday 30 April 2008. Radio 4 celebrated Humphrey Lyttelton Day on Sunday 15 June 2008, including a new profile of ISIHAC by Stephen Fry called Chairman Humph — A Tribute . After his death,
9021-403: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Flook (comic strip) It
9118-405: Was taken by Rob Brydon , but a pre-recorded message from Lyttelton was played to the audience ("I'm sorry I can't be with you today as I am in hospital — I wish I'd thought of this sooner!"). The panellists on that night were Tim Brooke-Taylor , Graeme Garden , Barry Cryer and Jeremy Hardy . Lyttelton died following his surgery on 25 April 2008, with his family around him. After his death
9215-612: Was the first newspaper comic strip to be published by the New Zealand newspaper Otago Daily Times , where it ran from 1952 to 1979. In North America, the strip was syndicated via the General Features Corporation to newspapers between 10 September 1951 and 15 October 1954, at which point the last paper to run it, the Vancouver Province , discontinued it mid-story. The central characters were
9312-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
9409-811: Was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1958, when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre . By now his repertoire had expanded, including not only lesser known Duke Ellington pieces, but even "The Champ" from Dizzy Gillespie 's band book. The Lyttelton band — he saw himself primarily as a leader — helped develop the careers of many now prominent British musicians, including Tony Coe and Alan Barnes . In 1983, Lyttelton formed Calligraph Records, which reissued some of his old recordings, all future recordings by his band, and recordings by band members. On 11 March 2008, he announced that he would cease presenting BBC Radio 2 's Best of Jazz . On 23 July 2008, Lyttelton
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