He Plays As He Pleases

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 791, 17 September 1954, Page 21

He Plays As He Pleases

}{UMPHREY LYTTELTON, who has been described as the only nonAmerican. jazz musician of any importance, bought his first trumpet, "a de luxe streamlined Manhattan,’ while playing truant from Lord’s at the age of 15. His recently-published memoirs, I Play: as I Please (MacGibbon and Kee, 15/-), tells how it got the better of an old Etonian in the end. When he came out of the Guards, meaning to be a school master, he found brushing up his geography too irksome; and decided to study art. "IT studied illustration under John Minton, who derived an endless amount of amusement from my _ pen-and-ink illustrations. This would have been more gratifying if they had been intentionally humorous. But it was my attempts at dramatic and romantic illustrations of such books as The Mill on the Floss and Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which made him laugh most uproariously." So he went back to his trumpet. Considering his aversion to geography, it is uncertain whether Mr. Lyttelton, better known to jazz fans as "Humpf," knows where New Orleans is, but he is authoritative on the post-war history of New Orleans jazz in Britain. If you do not know the difference between "Smokey Mokes" and "Fidgety Feet," here’s your chance to learn. He is indignant with those who believe in drug-ridden Soho dance clubs. To make disillusionment doubly sure, he twice —

explains that when fights break out in dance clubs, the musicians are safe as long as they keep. on playing. I am. heartened to learn that he cannot sight-read music and finds it no inconvenience. "By far the greater proportion..of the world’s music," he>contends, "is produced by musicians who have no knowledge whatever of the absurdly complicated European system of musical notation." He might have mentioned. Donald Peers, who recently admitted in court that he was a member of this illustrious company of the uninitiated. When he and his band on their Charing Cross Road rooftop were commemorating the publication of the book, someone boldly asked. Humphrey Lyttelton how he got on with his cousin, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs. "People often ask me," he replied, "if he approves of my activities. They never ask me if I approve of his." The views of politicians are likely to be as emphatic on this subject as on all others. The | Assistant-Postmaster-General in Britain, David Gammans, certainly does not approve of the influence of American jazz. "I don’t believe that in the long run the British people will listen to this wailing cacophony of a crooner grasping a microphone like a lifebelt, and call that music," he told a London eae "It is a passing phase." -J. W. GOODWIN hitiddea)