[Dixielandjazz] Sir John Dankworth & Lady Cleo

[Bill Haesler]

Marek Boym wrote regarding the claim that Johnny Dankworth was a  
"former dixieland clarinetist":
> That was aeons ago!  Dankworth was a modernist already in the late  
> 1950's!

Dear Marek,
May I, a one-eyed lover of 'real jazz', suggest that he was never a  
'dixieland' clarinetist, notwithstanding that in 1944 he worked  
professionally with drummer Freddy Mirfield & His Garbage Men (with a  
young Freddy Randall) that recorded the following sides for Decca at  
the time. "Good old Wagon Blues/Miss Annabelle Lee/ At the Jazz Band  
Ball/On the Sunny Side of the Street".
When I first became aware of British jazz in the mid 1940s John D was  
a pioneer 'bopper', never ever to be represented in my record  
collection. Nor was his singing wife.
Kind regards,
Bill (with the eyepatch still firmly in place).