Pye Nixa NJE 1010
Nixa Jazz Today Series
7” EP
Recorded 13/12/55
Released Jan 1956

Tracks

Side 1
I’m Beginning To See The Light (Hodges, Ellington & George)
Jeepers Creepers (Mercer & Warren)

Side 2
I’m Putting All My Eggs In One Basket
(Berlin)
Deep In A Dream (Van Heusen)
(recorded 13/12/55)

Cleo Laine: A pen portrait by Benny Green

The place of the vocalist in modern jazz is an uncertain one. The harmonic and rhythmic complexities of the modern style tend to throw the average singer out of stride and there are all too few who can turn in a performance happy enough in conception and felicitous enough in execution not to make the accompanying musicians grimace privately in embarrassment. One of them is presented on these tracks with every circumstance exactly right.

Five years ago Cleo Laine was a housewife who sang over the washing-up. Then Johnny Dankworth discovered her, and the association has been an unbroken one ever since. Cleo joined the Dankworth Seven with no professional experience at all and became one of the group’s outstanding attractions. Today, featured with the Dankworth Orchestra, she remains one of the most potent drawing cards on the British musical scene. It is therefore fitting that for this session Johnny Dankworth was given carte blanche in the scoring of arrangements and selection of an accompanying group. The choice of tunes was left to Cleo, and of the four tracks perhaps only the lesser-known delectable “Deep In A Dream”, by Jimmy Van Heusen needs any introduction.

The accompanying group includes two Eddies who were once members of the Dankworth Seven, Messrs. Taylor and Blair on drums and trumpet; a decorous but formidable saxophone section with Dougie Robinson, Virgil Nameless, and Ronnie Ross; Ken Wray on trombone, curbing his natural boisterous spirits to blend into the overall sound; Sammy Stokes on bass and Max Harris on piano.

But the significant fact about this session is that it was influenced, perhaps dominated, by the musical personality of Johnny Dankworth. The scoring is unmistakably Dankworth’s, and the group sounds like a Dankworth group even though Johnny himself is not playing, and most of the musicians involved here have never worked in any of Johnny’s groups. The husky tones of Cleo Laine are therefore heard against an ideal background, subtle and sympathetic.

Personnel

Dougie Robinson (alto);
Virgil Nameless (tenor);
Ronnie Ross (bari);
Eddie Blair (trumpet);
Ken Wray (trom);
Max Harris (piano);
Sammy Stokes (bass);
Eddie Taylor (drums)

Sleeve:
Design: Ian Bradbery
Photography: Walter Hanlon

Recording:
Balance: Eric Tomlinson
Supervision: Denis Preston

Arrangements by Johnny Dankworth

Media/Mentions

Nixa Jazz Today series: New Year releases”, Gramophone magazine, February 1956, p. xxvi.