LONDON - BRITISH jazz musician and BBC broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton died on Friday following surgery, his website and the BBC said.

The trumpeter was 86.

Lyttelton, who was admitted to hospital earlier this week for surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm, hosted several BBC radio programmes, including the long-running comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

'We would like to thank everyone for their support and express our deep gratitude to the staff of Barnet General (hospital) for the care that they gave Humph.'

The father of four was loved by radio listeners for his sexual innuendos delivered with deadpan innocence.

He was a cartoonist and journalist as well as a highly-respected musician and cherished BBC radio stalwart.

'Humphrey Lyttelton will leave an enormous gap not just in British cultural life as a whole but in the lives of many millions of listeners,' said BBC director general Mark Thompson.

'One of the towering figures of British jazz, he excelled too as a writer, cartoonist, humorist and of course as a broadcaster on television and radio.

'On I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, all of his gifts were on show - his warmth and conviviality, his wit, his mischievousness.

'He was a unique, irreplaceable talent. Like his many fans, we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. Like them, all of us at the BBC feel a tremendous sense of loss.'

Lyttelton was born on May 23, 1921, in Eton, west of London. He began playing the trumpet in 1936 and served as an officer in the Grenadier Guards during World War II.

He was at the forefront of the 1950s traditional jazz revival and in 1956, his piece Bad Penny Blues was the first British jazz single to enter the top 20. That same year, his band opened jazz legend Louis Armstrong's shows in London.

He made a special guest appearance on Radiohead's track Life In A Glass House in 2000 and toured with his band until recently.

The current series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue was cancelled this month after Lyttelton, who had presented the show since 1972, was admitted to hospital.

Few on BBC radio could have got away with his outrageous double entendres on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which mostly featured the erotic escapades of Samantha, the show's fictitious scorer.

His website left an introspective Lyttelton quote: 'As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation.' -- AFP