Cleo Laine

Noted for her distinctive, scat singing style, her four octave range and vocal versatility, Cleo Laine is probably Britain's most successful jazz singer of all time. Feted by royalty and respected and admired right across the music fraternity, her fame grew out of humble beginnings near London, where she was raised by her mother, a farmer's daughter, and her father, a Jamaican labourer who liked to moonlight as a busker. She took singing and dancing lessons as a child before leaving school to take various jobs as apprentice hairdresser, hat-trimmer, librarian and pawnbroker. She didn't take up professional singing until her mid-twenties when she successfully auditioned for the Johnny Dankworth Seven band, led by John Dankworth. She went on to marry Dankworth (in 1958) and set up the Stables Theatre with him in Milton Keynes (in 1970). Laine also appeared in various plays in London, and had her first hit in 1961 with You'll Answer To Me; three years later she recorded the acclaimed Shakespeare & All That Jazz album with Dankworth. Continuing her relationship with musical theatre, she starred in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and The Merry Widow, as well as taking the leading role in Dankworth's musical, Colette. She won a Grammy for her 1985 album Cleo At Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert and went on to collaborate with many artists, including John Williams, Nigel Kennedy, Mel Torme and James Galway; and in 1992 appeared with Frank Sinatra in London. One of her most acclaimed recordings is the 1991 album Jazz, putting her stamp on standards such as Lady Be Good, St Louis Blues and The Midnight Sun in collaboration with jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Clark Terry and Toots Thielemans. In 1997 she was made a Dame of the British Empire and continued to sing with Dankworth up to his death in 2010, posthumously releasing their last recording together Jazz Matters the same year.

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