Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinetist and writer of film scores. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, he was a music educator and also her music director.
Born in Woodford, Essex, he grew up, within a family of musicians, in Walthamstow in its suburb of Highams Park and attended Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. He had violin and piano lessons before settling eventually on the clarinet at the age of 16, after hearing a record of the Benny Goodman Quartet. Soon afterwards, inspired by Johnny Hodges, he learned to play the alto saxophone.
After studying at London’s Royal Academy of Music and then national service in the army, he began a career on the British jazz scene. In 1949 he attended the Paris Jazz Festival and played with Charlie Parker. Parker's comments about Dankworth led to the engagement of the young British jazzman for a short tour of Sweden with the soprano-saxophonist Sidney Bechet. Dankworth was voted Musician of the Year in 1949.
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In 1950, Dankworth formed a small group, the Dankworth Seven, as a vehicle for his writing activities as well as a showcase for several young jazz players. After three successful years, the group was wound up, although it re-formed for several reunions over the years. Dankworth formed his big band in 1953.
The band was soon earning plaudits from the critics and was invited to the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival. The band performed at the Birdland jazz club in New York and shortly afterwards shared the stage with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for a number of concerts. Dankworth’s band also performed at a jazz event at New York’s Lewisohn stadium where Louis Armstrong joined them for a set. By now, Cleo Laine's singing was a regular feature of Dankworth's recordings and public appearances and they married in 1958.
Beginning that year, Dankworth started a second career as a popular composer of film and television scores (often credited as "Johnny Dankworth"). Among his best-known credits are the original themes for two famous British TV programmes, The Avengers (used from 1961 to 1964) and Tomorrow's World, plus the scores for the 1966 films Modesty Blaise and Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment. In 1961, Dankworth’s recording of Galt MacDermot’s African Waltz reached the British charts and remained there for several months.
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| Johnny with Cleo Laine |
Dankworth’s friendship with trumpeter Clark Terry led to Terry being a featured soloist on Dankworth’s 1964 album The Zodiac Variations, together with Bob Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, Lucky Thompson and other guests. Other Dankworth recordings during this period featured many other respected jazz names. During this active period of recording, the Dankworth band nevertheless found time for frequent live appearances and radio shows, including tours in Britain and Europe with Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Gerry Mulligan, and concerts and radio performances with Lionel Hampton and Ella Fitzgerald.
Dankworth’s friendship with Duke Ellington continued until the latter’s death in 1974. He recorded an album of symphonic arrangements of many Ellington tunes. Dankworth recorded various symphonic albums with Dizzy Gillespie and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and others. From 1984 to 1986, Dankworth was professor of music at Gresham College, London, giving free public lectures. He set up his own record label, Qnotes, in 2003, to reissue some of his old recordings as well as new ones. They include a number with Julian Lloyd Webber, Dudley Moore and members of his family.
John Dankworth was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2006 New Year's Honours List. Sir John remained an active composer into later life, and he wrote a jazz violin concerto for soloist Christian Garrick to play. This work had its world premier in Nottingham on 1 March 2008 in partnership with the Nottingham Youth Orchestra.
In October 2009 at the end of a US tour with his wife, Sir John was taken ill. The couple cancelled a number of UK concert dates for the following month. Dankworth did return to the concert stage for just one solo at the London Jazz Festival at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in December 2009. He played his sax from a wheelchair. He also played at John & Cleo's Christmas Show on the 17 December at The Stables in Wavendon. Dankworth died on 6 February 2010, aged 82.
(Edited from All about Jazz & Wikipedia)