Jack Hutton

Aug 29 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

ALTHOUGH his love was jazz and he could blow his trumpet with gusto and fine style, the man anticipated beat music and was there when the Beatles were rising – being greeted by John Lennon at the 1964 press conference, celebrating their arrival in New York, with words which can’t be published in a family paper.

But at least he was recognised.

In his career as a music journalist, Jack Hutton would be known to many great musicians – Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Diana Washington, Peggy Lee and just about every famous British jazzman and rock and roller.

For most of his career he served Melody Maker, the “musicians’ bible,” which had quite an intellectual tone, formed in 1928 for jazz enthusiasts.

Superficial feuding broke out between jazz, skiffle and rock and roll in the 1950s and early ’60s, but Hutton realised that a sense of rebellion and a desire to play well fused the various styles.

So he had no problem mixing with rock bands, including the young Rolling Stones (not so young in the case of drummer Charle Watts), whom he introduced to the jazz cellars of New York.

Hutton, the son of a ship’s engineer, grew up in Dundee, joining the town’s famous DC Thomson publishing group, famed for comics and newspapers.

On his return from National Service with the RAF, Hutton learned more about journalism with Thomson, developed his enthusiasm for jazz and married.

Moving to London in the 1950s, he joined the MM, taking over as editor in 1962, just before the Beatles broke into the charts with Love Me Do. The MM and its great rival, the NME, were regarded more seriously than today’s publications and pronouncements from the rock stars were treated with near reverence by writers who, themselves, possessed considerable talent.

Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham announced his “retirement” in 1964 in the MM, where Brian Epstein had argued for a more tolerant approach to marijuana shortly before his death in 1967. By then it was approaching a circulation of 300,000.

Hutton was editor when the legendary Raver column was written by Bob Dawborn.

But in 1970 Hutton left the MM to co-found Sounds with advertising manager Peter Wilkinson.

In later years, Hutton, married with two daughters, played trumpet with the Codgers, a jazz band of old Fleet Street hacks.

Jack Hutton, journalist, born April 17, 1928; died August 24, 2008.