Jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball has died of pneumonia in hospital in Basildon, Essex. He was 82.
He had not played with his band – the Jazzmen – since a concert in Chemnitz, Germany, in January, when he left hospital to make the gig.
Ball is survived by his partner and his son, Keith, who had joined his father on stage.
Ball, who lived in Essex, found fame with a string of hits including Midnight in Moscow, which got to number two in the charts in 1961.
The track sold more than a million copies around the world. He formed the band with the trombonist John Bennett in 1958. "Kenny had lungs like an elephant," said the band's stage manager, Syd Appleton, but over the last year, the band had played with a second trumpeter, Ben Cummings. "Playing the trumpet at 82 is hard work. He was still playing a bit. It was a bit like a crutch so he could sit down and have a sit down by the stage," said Appleton.
"It is such a great loss. He never forgot what made him. The fans."
The band still plan to play in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on Friday along with those led by two other famous names from the 60s and 70s, trombonist Chris Barber and clarinettist Acker Bilk. "He went out fighting," said Ball's manager, Les Squire. "He would be playing tomorrow if he could have got out of that bed."
Ball, who was born in Ilford, left school at 14 to be a clerk in an advertising agency and started taking trumpet lessons, turning professional in 1953. He played with the Sid Phillips and Eric Delaney bands before forming his own group.
The band had their first hit, I Love You, Samantha, in 1961. Other successes included March of the Siamese Children, Sukiyaki and I Want To Be Like You.
They were regulars on TV light entertainment shows including the Morecambe and Wise Show and were the resident band on the BBC1 series Saturday Night at the Mill, broadcast from Birmingham's Pebble Mill studios. Ball supported his idol Louis Armstrong in 1968 during his last European tour and played at the wedding reception for the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981.