British jazz icon Dame Cleo Laine dies at 97 as children confirm sad news: ‘We will miss her terribly’
Britain’s most celebrated jazz vocalist, Dame Cleo Laine, has passed away at 97. Her children Jacqui and Alec confirmed she died peacefully on Thursday afternoon.
“It is with deepest sadness that we announce the passing of our dearly beloved mother, Cleo, who died peacefully yesterday afternoon. We will all miss her terribly,” the family statement read.
The children requested privacy during their bereavement, asking for space to grieve.
Dame Cleo stood as the nation’s most accomplished jazz performer, renowned for her extraordinary vocal abilities and versatility across musical genres.
Her death marks the end of an era for British jazz, following a career that spanned seven decades and established her as one of the world’s most respected vocalists.
Her exceptional talent made her the sole female performer to receive Grammy nominations across jazz, pop and classical categories.
Dame Cleo possessed a remarkable four-octave vocal range and became renowned for her mastery of scat singing.
Throughout her illustrious career, she performed alongside numerous musical giants.
Laine recorded Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with Ray Charles and created collaborative albums with classical guitarist John Williams and flautist James Galway.
Her versatility extended from performing Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal compositions to recording Stephen Sondheim collections.
In 1992, she served as support act for Frank Sinatra during his five-night engagement at the Royal Albert Hall.
American critics embraced her following her New York debut, leading to sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall and appearances on Broadway.
Born Clementina Campbell in Uxbridge in 1927 to a Jamaican father and English mother, she grew up in Southall.
Following her education, she took various positions including hairdressing, millinery and pawnbroking work.
Her professional singing career began in her mid-twenties when she successfully auditioned for the Dankworth Seven.
“In a sense, with them, I started at the top,” she later reflected. Laine adopted her stage name and earned £7 weekly with the band.
Her first marriage to George Langridge, with whom she had son Stuart, ended after he dismissed her musical ambitions as a “pipe-dream”.
She married bandleader John Dankworth in 1958, beginning a musical partnership that would define both their careers.
Together they created innovative jazz interpretations of works by Shakespeare, E.E cummings, WH Auden and TS Eliot.
Dame Cleo and Dankworth established The Stables in 1970 at their Wavendon, Buckinghamshire residence.
The venue has since hosted performances by Dave Brubeck, Amy Winehouse and numerous other artists, whilst also providing music education programmes.
Laine received an OBE in 1979 and was made a dame in 1997. Her husband received a knighthood in 2006.
The couple performed together until shortly before Dankworth’s passing in February 2010. Dame Cleo famously continued with a scheduled Stables anniversary concert that same evening, only revealing her husband’s death afterwards.
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“It wasn’t so much ‘the show must go on’ – I’m not that committed to the stage. I instinctively knew Johnny would want it to,” she explained in 2010.
She leaves behind daughter Jacqui and son Alec. Her eldest son Stuart passed away in 2019.