Cleo Laine, the British jazz vocalist also famed for performances in music theater and modern classical repertory, has died at 97.
Laine launched her career singing with a group led by clarinetist and saxophonist John Dankworth, whom she married in 1958. The couple continued performing together until shortly before Dankworth’s death in 2010.
Known for her four-octave vocal range, Laine sang jazz, cabaret and popular standards, as well as Dankworth’s settings of texts by William Shakespeare and other British literary figures, and 20th-century classics such as Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” William Walton’s “Façade,” Kurt Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” and Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town.” She performed in stage productions ranging from Franz Léhar’s “The Merry Widow” to Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music.”
In 1976, she made a celebrated recording of songs from The Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” with Ray Charles. She also recorded with Mel Tormé, Dudley Moore, James Galway and John Williams.
She was the only female artist to be nominated for jazz, pop and classical Grammy Awards, winning a Grammy for jazz vocal performance in 1986.
Laine was tapped as an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1979 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1997.
She continued to perform into her late 80s. Her son, Alec, is a jazz bassist, and her daughter, Jacqui, is a jazz vocalist.
An obituary by Ben Beaumont-Thomas for The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/25/cleo-laine-britain-jazz-singer-john-dankworth-dies
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