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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 BBC Radio 2's The Best Of Jazz is to take a rest and return in the Summer of 2007.
Humphrey has presented The Best Of Jazz continuously for Radio 2 since October 1967.
The last show before the break will be on Monday 2 April at 8.00pm.
The Best Of Jazz will then be broadcast as a 13-week series twice a year.
Humph will continue to chair BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
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.
"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.
"So if this announcement has summoned the word 'retirement' to your minds, dismiss it at once.
"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."
Humphrey was born on 23 May 1921.
He began playing the trumpet in 1936 and the same year formed a school quartet.
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.
Much of his spare time was spent with his own band, which he formed in 1948 and has led up to the present day.
He recorded prolifically for Parlophone Records in the Fifties, and now appears on his own label Calligraph Records.
He has written seven books and presented the BBC TV programmes Jazz 625 and Jazz Goes To College, and BBC radio programmes Jazz Club, The Best Of Jazz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 1993 Humphrey received a Sony Gold Award for services to broadcasting and at the inaugural BBC Jazz Awards in 2001 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Radio 2 Publicity
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