George Melly, 80; flashy, hard-living jazz singer, arts critic

George Melly, 80, a flamboyant, gravel-voiced jazz singer, critic and raconteur, died Thursday at his home in London, his wife, Diana, said.

Though suffering from lung cancer and dementia, Melly continued performing until nearly the end. He gave his last concert June 10.

Born in Liverpool in 1926, Melly was noted for loud suits, louder ties and the image he cultivated of a hard-drinking throwback to the Jazz Age.

After his navy service in World War II, Melly relished the life of a nomadic musician. “Hard drinking and squalid digs, but absolutely no regrets,” he once recalled.

He gave up the musician’s life in 1962 to concentrate on writing about surrealist art and working as a music and theater critic.

He resumed performing in the 1970s with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers.