John Dankworth

Sir John Phillip William Dankworth CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, and bandleader. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, he was a music educator and also her music director. The New York Times described him as "one of the leading lights of British jazz." He was also a prolific composer of film soundtracks. Dankworth was born in Walthamstow, then in Essex (registration district West Ham) in 1927, the son of William Henry Dankworth (1890–1972), sales manager for an electrical insulator works, and Alice Elizabeth (1897–1981), née Houchen. He grew up, within a family of musicians, in Hollywood Way, Highams Park, near Chingford, and attended Selwyn Boys' (Junior) School in Highams Park and later Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. He had violin and piano lessons before settling eventually on the clarinet at the age of 16, after hearing a record by the Benny Goodman Quartet. Soon afterwards, inspired by Charlie Parker, Dankworth learned to play the alto saxophone. He made his first recording in 1944, playing the clarinet on "Good Old Wagon Blues" by Freddie Mirfield and his Garbage Men. He began his career on the British jazz scene after studying at London's Royal Academy of Music (where his jazz interests were frowned upon) and then national service in the Royal Air Force, during which he played alto sax and clarinet for RAF Music Services.