Martin Litton – Piano in the family

There may be something to this genetics lark, as I found out a while back that Im not the only pianist in the family.

My cousin, Martin Litton is a jazz pianist of some note having played regularly with Kenny Ball as well as with George Chisholm and Humphrey Lyttleton.

He’s also known as an expert in Stride Piano – a style of jazz that evolved partially from ragtime. I once saw Martin peform an interesting evening of music and talk around one of its key practitioners, Jelly Roll Morton. A very entertaining evening.

In an email to me earlier today, Martin described his route to success which was “to answer an advertisemant in the (now defunct) Melody Maker for a job in a London jazz band. I got this job in my last year at music college which put my face on the London classic jazz scene and then it was all word of mouth leading me from semi-pro to more professional and higher profile groups.”

He goes on to explain that the London Jazz club circuit no longer exists as he knew it, but notes that many young jazz musicians go straight from there college training into forming bands themselves.