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Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, A voice that still


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Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, A voice that still thrills

March 22, 2005

Those eyes still flash, the hair still curls and the voice still plunges and soars. At 77, Dame Cleo Laine is a living antidote to any fear of growing old. Her remarkable voice remains largely intact, and her girlish effervescence still froths like rapidly poured champagne.

Few singers enjoy such longevity. Most who try are having a lend of themselves, their audience or both. Dame Cleo - it seems hugely inappropriate to simply call her "Laine" - has somehow kept most of her legendary four octaves intact. At the contralto end she has lost none of the warmth and, while her upper extension may be missing a couple of notes, it is still full, accurate and thrilling.

The cause is no doubt aided by having such a consummate arranger for a husband. John Dankworth knows every nuance of his wife's voice, and creates contexts for it that are as unassuming as they are finely detailed. Here the pair were joined by their touring drummer, Jim Zimmerman, plus seven high-calibre local musicians, and there were times when what was happening around Dame Cleo was as appealing as her singing.

Such well-worn items as a Cole Porter medley and Send in the Clowns (which was the encore) were made anew by deft scoring for three reeds, trumpet, trombone, rhythm section and Dankworth's own clarinet, soprano saxophone and alto.

Clowns was the highlight for me, Dame Cleo wringing the pathos from it without even a whiff of overstatement.

Whether such songs from the cabaret end of the spectrum are more her natural habitat than the jazz ones is open to debate. She shies away from calling herself a jazz singer, yet has the ears and the sense of phrasing to do a more than convincing job, not to mention a still-stunning exactness of pitch when it comes to scatting with her husband's creamy alto. If it is a rather polite - perhaps somewhat British - version of jazz, it oozes class.

Among three Duke Ellington tunes was a lovely version of Creole Love Call, the wordless vocal capturing the dreaminess in a voluptuous tone. The 1964 Shakespeare and All That Jazz project was revisited, including Dankworth's superb setting for Shall I Compare Thee.

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