Jacqueline Dankworth

Jacqueline Dankworth, the offspring of British jazz-pop vocalist Cleo Laine and saxophone/clarinet player John Dankworth, forges an independent path as a skilled jazz and pop singer. Her first recording, the 1994 album First Cry, emerged from a partnership with jazz vibraphonist Anthony Kee. The next project, Field Of Blue from 1995, captured performances at London’s Ronnie Scott’s nightclub and featured songwriting collaborator Harvey Brough, once of Harvey And The Wallbangers, plus Martin Brunsden on bass and didgeridoo and John F. Miller on piano. A third album, Still, followed in 1997 with the same group of musicians.

She began her professional life as an actress in the mid-1980s, taking part in numerous Royal Shakespeare Company productions. Regular appearances in London’s West End included the Ellington revue Sophisticated Ladies, Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, and Christopher Hampton’s Les Liasons Dangereuses.

On the concert side, Dankworth traveled through the Orient with the Alec and Jacqui Dankworth Quintet, the ensemble she created with her brother Alec. She also journeyed across India with the John Dexter Company and maintained a duo with pianist David Gordon. In 1996 she joined Monica Vasconcelos, Norma Winstone, and Christine Tobin in saxophonist Tim Garland’s stage work Songs Of Love And Hatred.