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Press Releases
Humphrey Lyttelton and The Best Of Jazz take a rest
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Humphrey Lyttelton last night announced that Â鶹Éç Radio 2's The Best Of Jazz is to take a rest and return in the Summer of 2007.
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Humphrey has presented The Best Of Jazz continuously for Radio 2 since October 1967.
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The last show before the break will be on Monday 2 April at 8.00pm.
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The Best Of Jazz will then be broadcast as a 13-week series twice a year.
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Humph will continue to chair Â鶹Éç Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
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Humph says: "On April 2nd I shall be ending the unbroken run of The Best Of Jazz. I say at once that this is solely my own decision.
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"I've presented The Best Of Jazz for almost 40 years continuously, at a rate of around 50 a year, choosing and scripting some 20,000 items and I now want to have a bit more time for other things, my own still active and flourishing band, high among them.
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"So if this announcement has summoned the word 'retirement' to your minds, dismiss it at once.
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"I shall be back in July with a three month series of similar programmes, but this time it will be as a short distance, rather than a marathon runner."
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Humphrey was born on 23 May 1921.
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He began playing the trumpet in 1936 and the same year formed a school quartet.
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After serving as an officer in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War he started working as a cartoonist at the Daily Mail, where he remained until 1956.
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Much of his spare time was spent with his own band, which he formed in 1948 and has led up to the present day.
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He recorded prolifically for Parlophone Records in the Fifties, and now appears on his own label Calligraph Records.
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He has written seven books and presented the Â鶹Éç TV programmes Jazz 625 and Jazz Goes To College, and Â鶹Éç radio programmes Jazz Club, The Best Of Jazz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
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In 1993 Humphrey received a Sony Gold Award for services to broadcasting and at the inaugural Â鶹Éç Jazz Awards in 2001 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Radio 2 Publicity
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