[Dixielandjazz] Dankworth Obit

[Ivor Jones]

Walthamstow is one of the suburbs of East London, I was also born there, but 
22 months later.
We both passed our '11 plus' examinations, Johnny went to St Monoux Grammar 
school, I chose a Technical College and School of Art, 500 yards down the 
road.
One year I went to a college dance, the band was Freddie Mirfield's Garbage 
Men, who I had down as a jazz band. If I had I known that a J.Dankworth was 
on clarinet
it would not have meant a great deal. It was about 1945, but I met him 
personally in 1958. I quote from my book,

'One of our gigs was for charity at the Monoux Grammar School. There was 
makeshift stage, we set up, and we had played a couple of numbers when we 
heard a commotion at the entrance, the guests of honour, Cleo Lane and 
Johnny Dankworth had arrived, Johnny had been educated at the Monoux, hence 
the invitation to open the fete. He walked over to see the band, to listen 
to them for a while. We finished the number to polite applause from the 
crowd, which like pied pipers, Johnny and Cleo had attracted over to the 
front of the stand. They kept asking Johnny to perform with us. 'I'd love to 
play, but sorry I don't have my horn with me'. 'No problem' said Ron, 
producing an alto. 'Right' said Johnny 'What shall we play' This a Charity 
fete, play 'Pennies from Heaven', Johnny agreed and Cleo stepped up, 'I'll 
sing with you' she offered.
The organisers didn't miss a trick, we played about 32 bars and two guys 
turned up with a blanket which they held up in front of the band for 
donations, the crowd responded in a second, and a hail of pennies came 
through the air. Some landed in the blanket, many landed on the band. A horn 
or two was dented by the shrapnel, it wasn't such a good idea after all. We 
all took cover. So I can confirm that I had played with Johnny Dankworth for 
1 minute 17 seconds. And you've seen the picture to prove it.' ( The picture 
is in the book.  Sorry )

Ivor Jones




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen G Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "iVOR jONES" <BANJONES at sapo.pt>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 4:37 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Dankworth Obit


> Here is a more complete obit of Sir John Dankworth. From Telegraph.co.uk
> 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.
> 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 continue 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. In 1951 the  Seven appeared in one of 
> the two inaugural jazz concerts at the Royal  Festival Hall and 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 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 asTomorrow's World (1966), and 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.
> 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, 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 
> Buckinghamshire home, 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.
> John Dankworth was appointed CBE in 1974 and knighted in 2006.
> He and Dame Cleo Laine had two children: the double-bassist Alec 
> Dankworth, and the singer and actress Jacqui Dankworth.
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