Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE was born in Essex on 20 September 1927. Johnny Dankworth, as he is commonly known, was brought up in a family of musicians. He had violin and piano lessons before settling eventually on the clarinet.
After a period at London’s Royal Academy of Music, and national service in the army, he began a career on the British jazz scene, being voted Musician of the Year in 1949. During that year he attended the Paris Jazz Festival and played with Charlie Parker.
Among his best-known credits are the original themes for The Avengers and Tomorrow’s World, plus the scores for the 1966 films Modesty Blaise and Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment. Dankworth’s active jazz life, which also includes many appearances and recordings with his wife, singer Dame Cleo Laine, shows no signs of abating and appeared with his wife recently on the Jools Holland Show. He remains a prominent figure in the British jazz scene. He was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2006 New Year’s Honours List, the first British jazz musician to receive such an honour.
Dame Cleo Laine DBE, was born in Middlesex on October 28, 1927 to a Jamaican father and English mother who sent her to singing and dancing lessons at an early age. She worked as an apprentice hairdresser, librarian and for a pawnbrokers and did not take up singing seriously until her mid-twenties, however. She auditioned successfully for a band led by musician John Dankworth, with which she performed until 1958, when she and Dankworth married.
She is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical music awards. Laine was made an Officer (OBE) of the Order of the British Empire for services to music. In the 1997 New Year’s Honours list, Laine’s membership of the order was elevated to Dame Commander, and she was appointed Dame Cleo Laine DBE (the female equivalent of a knighthood) in the 2006 New Years Honours list.
