Sir John Dankworth
Sir John Dankworth, who died on February 6 aged 82, was a pioneer of modern jazz in Britain, a leading composer of film music, a tireless champion of musical education, regardless of genre, and a superb instrumentalist in his own right.
Published: 11:33AM GMT 07 Feb 2010
Dankworth's care over the shaping and presentation of his music led occasionally to complaints that it was clever, lightweight stuff, lacking the rough passion which many regarded as the mark of authentic jazz, a view summed up by the critic Kitty Grime in the much-quoted phrase "couth, kempt and shevelled". On the other hand, his admirers included such notable figures as Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.
John Philip William Dankworth was born in Walthamstow on September 20 1927. Smitten by jazz at an early age, he acquired a second-hand clarinet and was playing in semi-professional dance bands while still at school. In 1944 Dankworth passed the audition to study at the Royal Academy of Music.
His extra-curricular interests had to be kept a closely guarded secret, in particular the fact that he now owned a saxophone, an instrument which was rarely even mentioned within the walls of the Academy. Even so, during his final year he contrived to work regularly as a member of Freddie Mirfield's Garbage Men, a novelty band which toured the lower-echelon music halls.
Following National Service in the RASC, much of it spent playing with an army dance band in Cirencester, Dankworth, along with Ronnie Scott and other ambitious young jazz players, joined the Queen Mary as a musician and sailed for New York on the liner's first post-war civilian voyage. The attraction of the job was the ship's fortnightly turn-round period in New York, during which they were able to hear some of the greatest jazz artists at first hand. For the rest of their lives, both Scott and Dankworth were able to recall these brief visits in vivid detail, in particular the revolutionary bebop of Charlie Parker.
Back in London, Dankworth took casual jobs in dance bands and played jazz whenever the opportunity arose. Dankworth, Scott and other young players would hire a rehearsal room to work on their bebop skills. Eventually, in 1948, they formed themselves into two bands, hired a studio in central London, called themselves Club Eleven (10 musicians and a manager) and began charging admission. Extremely avant garde for its time, Club Eleven attracted enough patrons to sustain it as a venue for several years.
In 1950 Dankworth formed his first band, the Johnny Dankworth Seven, containing some of Britain's leading young soloists. The style was neatly arranged bebop, inspired by Miles Davis's band of the time. Although this enterprise almost collapsed in its early days, a modest growth in the audience for modern jazz allowed it to gain a foothold. Within a year, the Seven, and Dankworth himself, figured among the winners in the annual polls conducted by the music press.
Dankworth did his bit for the export drive by playing and endorsing the Grafton Acrylic alto saxophone, an all-British product with an instantly recognisable plastic body. He was playing it in 1951 when the Seven appeared in one of the two inaugural jazz concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. In the same year the Seven recruited a young and totally inexperienced singer, Cleo Laine.
Dankworth broke up the Seven in 1953 and launched his first big band, consisting of eight brass, five saxophones, rhythm section and three vocalists. It was the first serious and deliberate challenge to Ted Heath, Britain's reigning bandleader, whose immaculately polished, bravura style had never been entirely satisfying to dedicated jazz listeners.
Although much of its time was spent in playing for ballroom dancing, Dankworth's band was essentially a jazz orchestra, with a notable contingent of fine jazz soloists. But Dankworth was not happy with the conventional big band format. In 1956 he disbanded and redesigned the orchestra, with a mixed ensemble of soloists in place of the saxophone section.
For this imaginative combination Dankworth and his chief arranger, Dave Lindup, created a uniquely light but firm jazz sound. In its first year the new band had a hit single with Experiments With Mice, the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice arranged in the styles of various well-known bands. In 1961 Dankworth scored another hit with African Waltz.
In the mid-1950s the orchestra had a long-running radio series in which Dankworth made a point of introducing guests from other musical genres. These were mainly classical virtuosi, such as the clarinettist Jack Brymer and violinist Kenneth Essex, but the one which he recalled with the greatest affection was Gerard Hoffnung, the comedian and cartoonist, who delivered a remarkable performance of There’s A Small Hotel on the tuba.
In 1960 Dankworth gave up full-time bandleading in order to concentrate on composition. He had already made an impressive debut with the score to Karel Reisz's documentary film We Are The Lambeth Boys (1959). Now he composed and conducted the music for Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (Reisz, 1960) and The Criminal (Joseph Losey, 1960). So successful were these, and so distinctive the music, that the Dankworth sound became inseparably linked with the new wave of British cinema in the 1960s.
Among the best known are The Servant (Losey, 1963), Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965), Modesty Blaise (Losey 1966) and Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment (Reisz, 1966). To these were added television themes such as The Avengers (1961) and Tomorrow's World (1966), as well as an endless stream of advertising commercials.
Amidst all this activity, Dankworth contrived to assemble ad hoc bands, to write music for them and to record it. What The Dickens (1963), Zodiac Variations (1964), The $1,000,000 Collection (1969) and Lifeline (1974) were among the most successful. He also wrote, in collaboration with Benny Green, a musical version of Lysistrata, performed at the 1964 Bath Featival, a piano concerto, a string quartet and several choral works.
John Dankworth and Cleo Laine were married in 1958 and their careers were intertwined thereafter. From the mid-1970s, in particular, much of his time was taken up by acting as his wife's musical director. A Cleo Laine song is, generally speaking, a John Dankworth arrangement and some of his most beautiful and delicate writing is to found in the accompaniments he devised for her: the voice-and-clarinet duet version of Thieving Boy, the settings of Shakespeare songs, especially the mind-boggling Compleat Works, and the innocent I'm On A See-Saw.
They were also equal partners in the Wavendon Allmusic Plan, an educational and cultural programme launched in 1969 and based at their home at Wavendon, near Milton Keynes, dedicated to bringing together musicians of all styles and cultures. Also on the premises is The Stables, a concert hall presenting international artists.
In later years, Dankworth joined with his son, Alec, in forming the 12-piece Dankworth Generation Band, made up of their favourite musicians, regardless of age. To perform with it, Dankworth revived the C-melody saxophone, an obsolete and almost forgotten instrument, from which he coaxed a delicate and charmingly gawky tone.
John Dankworth continued performing almost until the end of his life, although his mobility became increasingly restricted. Among the activities which he inaugurated at Wavendon in recent years were informal chats about music by him and an invited guest or two. These inevitably produced fascinating, often indiscreet, reminiscences of his long professional career.
John Dankworth was appointed CBE in 1974 and received a knighthood in the 2006 New Year Honours.
He is survived by Dame Cleo Laine and their two children, the double-bassist Alec Dankworth and the singer and actress Jacqui Dankworth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7180882/Sir-John-Dankworth.html
Published: 11:33AM GMT 07 Feb 2010
Dankworth's care over the shaping and presentation of his music led occasionally to complaints that it was clever, lightweight stuff, lacking the rough passion which many regarded as the mark of authentic jazz, a view summed up by the critic Kitty Grime in the much-quoted phrase "couth, kempt and shevelled". On the other hand, his admirers included such notable figures as Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.
John Philip William Dankworth was born in Walthamstow on September 20 1927. Smitten by jazz at an early age, he acquired a second-hand clarinet and was playing in semi-professional dance bands while still at school. In 1944 Dankworth passed the audition to study at the Royal Academy of Music.
His extra-curricular interests had to be kept a closely guarded secret, in particular the fact that he now owned a saxophone, an instrument which was rarely even mentioned within the walls of the Academy. Even so, during his final year he contrived to work regularly as a member of Freddie Mirfield's Garbage Men, a novelty band which toured the lower-echelon music halls.
Following National Service in the RASC, much of it spent playing with an army dance band in Cirencester, Dankworth, along with Ronnie Scott and other ambitious young jazz players, joined the Queen Mary as a musician and sailed for New York on the liner's first post-war civilian voyage. The attraction of the job was the ship's fortnightly turn-round period in New York, during which they were able to hear some of the greatest jazz artists at first hand. For the rest of their lives, both Scott and Dankworth were able to recall these brief visits in vivid detail, in particular the revolutionary bebop of Charlie Parker.
Back in London, Dankworth took casual jobs in dance bands and played jazz whenever the opportunity arose. Dankworth, Scott and other young players would hire a rehearsal room to work on their bebop skills. Eventually, in 1948, they formed themselves into two bands, hired a studio in central London, called themselves Club Eleven (10 musicians and a manager) and began charging admission. Extremely avant garde for its time, Club Eleven attracted enough patrons to sustain it as a venue for several years.
In 1950 Dankworth formed his first band, the Johnny Dankworth Seven, containing some of Britain's leading young soloists. The style was neatly arranged bebop, inspired by Miles Davis's band of the time. Although this enterprise almost collapsed in its early days, a modest growth in the audience for modern jazz allowed it to gain a foothold. Within a year, the Seven, and Dankworth himself, figured among the winners in the annual polls conducted by the music press.
Dankworth did his bit for the export drive by playing and endorsing the Grafton Acrylic alto saxophone, an all-British product with an instantly recognisable plastic body. He was playing it in 1951 when the Seven appeared in one of the two inaugural jazz concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. In the same year the Seven recruited a young and totally inexperienced singer, Cleo Laine.
Dankworth broke up the Seven in 1953 and launched his first big band, consisting of eight brass, five saxophones, rhythm section and three vocalists. It was the first serious and deliberate challenge to Ted Heath, Britain's reigning bandleader, whose immaculately polished, bravura style had never been entirely satisfying to dedicated jazz listeners.
Although much of its time was spent in playing for ballroom dancing, Dankworth's band was essentially a jazz orchestra, with a notable contingent of fine jazz soloists. But Dankworth was not happy with the conventional big band format. In 1956 he disbanded and redesigned the orchestra, with a mixed ensemble of soloists in place of the saxophone section.
For this imaginative combination Dankworth and his chief arranger, Dave Lindup, created a uniquely light but firm jazz sound. In its first year the new band had a hit single with Experiments With Mice, the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice arranged in the styles of various well-known bands. In 1961 Dankworth scored another hit with African Waltz.
In the mid-1950s the orchestra had a long-running radio series in which Dankworth made a point of introducing guests from other musical genres. These were mainly classical virtuosi, such as the clarinettist Jack Brymer and violinist Kenneth Essex, but the one which he recalled with the greatest affection was Gerard Hoffnung, the comedian and cartoonist, who delivered a remarkable performance of There’s A Small Hotel on the tuba.
In 1960 Dankworth gave up full-time bandleading in order to concentrate on composition. He had already made an impressive debut with the score to Karel Reisz's documentary film We Are The Lambeth Boys (1959). Now he composed and conducted the music for Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (Reisz, 1960) and The Criminal (Joseph Losey, 1960). So successful were these, and so distinctive the music, that the Dankworth sound became inseparably linked with the new wave of British cinema in the 1960s.
Among the best known are The Servant (Losey, 1963), Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965), Modesty Blaise (Losey 1966) and Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment (Reisz, 1966). To these were added television themes such as The Avengers (1961) and Tomorrow's World (1966), as well as an endless stream of advertising commercials.
Amidst all this activity, Dankworth contrived to assemble ad hoc bands, to write music for them and to record it. What The Dickens (1963), Zodiac Variations (1964), The $1,000,000 Collection (1969) and Lifeline (1974) were among the most successful. He also wrote, in collaboration with Benny Green, a musical version of Lysistrata, performed at the 1964 Bath Featival, a piano concerto, a string quartet and several choral works.
John Dankworth and Cleo Laine were married in 1958 and their careers were intertwined thereafter. From the mid-1970s, in particular, much of his time was taken up by acting as his wife's musical director. A Cleo Laine song is, generally speaking, a John Dankworth arrangement and some of his most beautiful and delicate writing is to found in the accompaniments he devised for her: the voice-and-clarinet duet version of Thieving Boy, the settings of Shakespeare songs, especially the mind-boggling Compleat Works, and the innocent I'm On A See-Saw.
They were also equal partners in the Wavendon Allmusic Plan, an educational and cultural programme launched in 1969 and based at their home at Wavendon, near Milton Keynes, dedicated to bringing together musicians of all styles and cultures. Also on the premises is The Stables, a concert hall presenting international artists.
In later years, Dankworth joined with his son, Alec, in forming the 12-piece Dankworth Generation Band, made up of their favourite musicians, regardless of age. To perform with it, Dankworth revived the C-melody saxophone, an obsolete and almost forgotten instrument, from which he coaxed a delicate and charmingly gawky tone.
John Dankworth continued performing almost until the end of his life, although his mobility became increasingly restricted. Among the activities which he inaugurated at Wavendon in recent years were informal chats about music by him and an invited guest or two. These inevitably produced fascinating, often indiscreet, reminiscences of his long professional career.
John Dankworth was appointed CBE in 1974 and received a knighthood in the 2006 New Year Honours.
He is survived by Dame Cleo Laine and their two children, the double-bassist Alec Dankworth and the singer and actress Jacqui Dankworth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7180882/Sir-John-Dankworth.html
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