fabrisse: (Default)
fabrisse ([personal profile] fabrisse) wrote2010-02-07 03:13 pm

Johnny Dankworth, RIP

Guardian obituary

Sir John Dankworth. His tone was pure. He hired a college student named Dudley Moore who needed some extra money to play piano with his band in the 1950s. He found a girl singer, Cleo Laine, and broadened her range by having the band play a half-tone higher every night. She ended up with one of the widest ranges of any singer: a flexible and powerful instrument. She also ended up with a husband. They'd been married for 52 years.

Their daughter Jacqueline is a singer in her own right with an interesting taste in ballads. Their son Alec is a bassist and composer.

I know Dankworth more through his influence, and it was vast, on British jazz and through his compositions. I love his settings of Shakespeare songs. If you have iTunes check out Cantabile performing "Our Revels Now are Ended."

There are a couple of Youtube videos behind the cut. The first is him with Julian Lloyd Webber playing a an excerpt from a composition of Dankworth's called "Fair Oak Fusion." The second is an early sixties recording of Cleo Laine with Dankworth backing her.




[identity profile] wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com 2010-02-09 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
That's sad. I had no idea :o( They were a legend together and he was an amazing musician. RIP

[identity profile] fabrisse.livejournal.com 2010-02-09 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Married 52 years, too. That's an accomplishment rarely seen. I'm sorry such music has gone.