Carry on, Dame Cleo

[Serial_Apologist]

Did anyone else manage to listen to this? Unfortunately I fell asleep a short way in. Am wondering if it's worth checking out the R2 iPlayer.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Not me. I like her a lot as a person and it can't have been a very easy career making it in Britain and the States at the time she came up, but the vocal mannerisms, that dreaded vibrato, the dips into Shakespeare etc., are a blind spot for me. That said, there's a nice early clip on YouTube of her with Dankworth and Danny Moss etc "rehearsing" from a 1958 (dire) film "Six Five Special", a spin off from the TV show.

Btw, the LHR "Cloudburst" (JRR) always reminds me of Don Lang and his Frantic Five who used to do that on 6.5 Special. "Do" being the right term. Do one.

BN.

[Quarky]

Did anyone else manage to listen to this? Unfortunately I fell asleep a short way in. Am wondering if it's worth checking out the R2 iPlayer.

Listened to the first half hour. Chacun à son goût. It was a Radio 2 programme, a lighter form of entertainment, and perhaps appealing to those that like Jazz.but not extended improvisations. It fulfilled its function.

Personally, I prefer Tito Puente - get those hips rotating, Man! But my Saturday night's entertainment was a Video of Nutcracker performed by the Bolshoi. Unfortunately the male dancers of the Bolshoi are so good , they overpower the ballerinas - the performance was losing the entire point.

[CGR]

Infamy!

"Wherever, I wander, there's no place like ROME! "

[CGR]

Listened to the first half hour. Chacun à son goût. It was a Radio 2 programme, a lighter form of entertainment, and perhaps appealing to those that like Jazz.but not extended improvisations. It fulfilled its function.

Yep. Jazz for people who don't listen to jazz.

[Lat-Literal]

I like and admire her as a person - and I quite like her as a singer.

If John Dankworth was unequivocally jazz, why is Cleo Laine not jazz?

[Serial_Apologist]

I like and admire her as a person - and I quite like her as a singer.

If John Dankworth was unequivocally jazz, why is Cleo Laine not jazz?

The answer probably lies with the people, whoever they are, and I've not come across them, claiming she is not a jazz singer themselves being ambivalent about terminologies. Both Dankworths were broad-ranging, not only in tastes but in extending their ideas beyond what their generation (let's say, to be controversial, the Ronnie Scott generation of "modern jazzers") regarded as legitimate territory for creative coverage or exploitation. While on the one hand that generation maintained the view of their immediate predecessors that non-American jazz was axiomatically oxymoromic - the music's evolution belonged elsewhere, racially and especially geographically - outwith its birthplace at best a second-hand derivative - for British and other non-American practitioners on the other hand, proximity to and relative familiarity with European classical models, their distinctions and evolutionary pathways, revealed how much jazz owed to "serious music", particularly in terms of harmony, as admitted mainly in asides by the music's leading protagonists, who rightly would have emphasised the terms advanced by jazz practice under conditions encouraging commercialisation. This "Euroclassicalising" tendency was especially important in the 1950s, the "Cool" jazz era, when jazz, not just "West Coast Jazz" but people like John Lewis and the MJQ, began heavily borrowing on Baroque historical stylings and even functional forms: Bach re-emerging from behind the arras of the figured (walking) bass. This side of The Pond the impact was immediately more compositional (if one dare conveniently separate "compositional" from "improvisational" as a specific stage non-American jazz in general went through) until entire questions of legacy and successional authenticity were thrown up in the air by the advent of free jazz, which once more placed improvisation at the centre as the music's main evolutionary driver; by which time the small, albeit relatively lucrative area of creativity established at Wavendon, with its cross-generical dilution of distinctions and correspondingly diminished role for improvisation, as implied by an earlier poster, had become less significant in defining new directions for the music, and more in the thrall of certain audiences with little knowledge of or interest in jazz as a radical, progressive form. That's always been my take on it, anyway.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I've never said Cleo is "not jazz", a slippery concept in singers anyway. It's that she's not the jazz I want to listen to for the reasons above, her overpowering mannerisms. And I never bought into the later Dankworth thing, although the earlier bands had something and some useful players.

The Ray Charles/Cleo Laine "Porgy" was also a great let down. Ray wanted Gladys Knight but Gladys wanted more money etc. It would have been interesting as Ms Knight has a voice.

I also think the "Ronnie Scott generation" was "slightly" more open than given credit, the range of players Hayes, Tracey, Scott played with in the 1960s and Scott's patronage of the "New Thing" at Gerrard St..

[Serial_Apologist]

I also think the "Ronnie Scott generation" was "slightly" more open than given credit, the range of players Hayes, Tracey, Scott played with in the 1960s and Scott's patronage of the "New Thing" at Gerrard St..

Ronnie Scott was relatively open to the "New Thing" - this was post the advent of free jazz as I see its influence exerting: Ronnie undoubtedly had difficulties within that area, but for that (and of course many, many more reasons) he is to be respected for his openmindedness and the huge boost he gave to our generation.

[Lat-Literal]

The answer probably lies with the people, whoever they are, and I've not come across them, claiming she is not a jazz singer themselves being ambivalent about terminologies. Both Dankworths were broad-ranging, not only in tastes but in extending their ideas beyond what their generation (let's say, to be controversial, the Ronnie Scott generation of "modern jazzers") regarded as legitimate territory for creative coverage or exploitation. While on the one hand that generation maintained the view of their immediate predecessors that non-American jazz was axiomatically oxymoromic - the music's evolution belonged elsewhere, racially and especially geographically - outwith its birthplace at best a second-hand derivative - for British and other non-American practitioners on the other hand, proximity to and relative familiarity with European classical models, their distinctions and evolutionary pathways, revealed how much jazz owed to "serious music", particularly in terms of harmony, as admitted mainly in asides by the music's leading protagonists, who rightly would have emphasised the terms advanced by jazz practice under conditions encouraging commercialisation. This "Euroclassicalising" tendency was especially important in the 1950s, the "Cool" jazz era, when jazz, not just "West Coast Jazz" but people like John Lewis and the MJQ, began heavily borrowing on Baroque historical stylings and even functional forms: Bach re-emerging from behind the arras of the figured (walking) bass. This side of The Pond the impact was immediately more compositional (if one dare conveniently separate "compositional" from "improvisational" as a specific stage non-American jazz in general went through) until entire questions of legacy and successional authenticity were thrown up in the air by the advent of free jazz, which once more placed improvisation at the centre as the music's main evolutionary driver; by which time the small, albeit relatively lucrative area of creativity established at Wavendon, with its cross-generical dilution of distinctions and correspondingly diminished role for improvisation, as implied by an earlier poster, had become less significant in defining new directions for the music, and more in the thrall of certain audiences with little knowledge of or interest in jazz as a radical, progressive form. That's always been my take on it, anyway.

Thank you for taking the trouble to try to explain this more fully.

I am still finding it quite difficult to get points of orientation on this matter. What I think I am hearing in what you have said is that the Wavendon version of creativity partially involved breaking down perceived barriers between American jazz and formal classical music. That this was fine so far as it went. However, it was always bound to be something of a sticky wicket given that formal historical reference was by definition not as experimental as pushing jazz to the outer edges of its own self-defined boundaries and beyond. Ultimately it would be seen as conservative - the venue itself a bit like a light jazz equivalent of Snape Maltings - or to run it through a different and even counter-intuitive prism, not wholly dissimilar from what happened later with prog rock when it went too far in embracing classicism. That is to the detriment of jam. Please correct me if this interpretation is wrong. I like the idea of obtaining greater understanding via the concept of "Euroclassicalising". Isn't there, though, a case for saying it is only the non-swinging, crystalline Scandinavians who represent European jazz in its purest form? That the Hot Club de France had reached out to America? North Sea Jazz, while often having a conservative accent on tempo, was American jazz curiously displaced? What too of London jazz? Laine's distinctive stylings might well irritate some just as could be true with many in the public eye who in the sixties decided to be, say, Anthony Newley. But it is the epitome of London while simultaneously bearing comparison with all the distinctive jazz vocalists, mostly American. Ronnie Scott is surely on that axis?

[Serial_Apologist]

Thank you for taking the trouble to try to explain this more fully.

I am still finding it quite difficult to get points of orientation on this matter. What I think I am hearing in what you have said is that the Wavendon version of creativity partially involved breaking down perceived barriers between American jazz and formal classical music. That this was fine so far as it went. However, it was always bound to be something of a sticky wicket given that formal historical reference was by definition not as experimental as pushing jazz to the outer edges of its own self-defined boundaries and beyond. Ultimately it would be seen as conservative - the venue itself a bit like a light jazz equivalent of Snape Maltings - or to run it through a different and even counter-intuitive prism, not wholly dissimilar from what happened later with prog rock when it went too far in embracing classicism. That is to the detriment of jam. Please correct me if this interpretation is wrong.

It's not an easy answer to formulate, given the multiple issues on offer for consideration.

I like the idea of obtaining greater understanding via the concept of "Euroclassicalising". Isn't there, though, a case for saying it is only the non-swinging, crystalline Scandinavians who represent European jazz in its purest form? That the Hot Club de France had reached out to America?

That's two different things. By "Euroclassicalising" I take you to mean jazz musicians adapting formal procedures and/or idiomatic characteristics on their own terms, as opposed to subordinating its spirit and procedures. I don't know enough about the Hot Club to say, but one factor in its popularity in the US during and after WW2 lay in the fact that the occupying forces that included GIs frequented the Parisian bar(s) where Django and Stephane performed, and of course Django would have reflected black GIs sense of outsider status, his background being Gypsy. It was a scenario in which neither party would have considered notions of purity of any sort in any field as other than a particularly unfortunate mixed metaphor, or at best the mistransplantation of an abstract principle from another field, my own view being that it's not best applied to art in general of any kind.

[Alyn_Shipton]

I should declare in interest - when I was 16 John Dankworth wrote Tom Sawyer's Saturday for the West Surrey Youth Orchestra in which I played. He (and Cleo) came and rehearsed with us, and I have seldom experienced such acute analysis of what we could do better, how to make it happen and (watching John rewrite some of the parts on stage as we rehearsed) how to overcome what he saw as his own shortcomings as a writer. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and although there are some things Cleo has recorded that wander along the boundaries of taste, I've never been less than impressed with her intuitive musicianship. If you want the story of the Wavendon "All Music" plan that blurred the boundaries between all genres, and was steered by John Ogdon, John Williams, Cleo and John, then check out my lengthy booklet on the "I Hear Music" 4 CD set of Cleo and John's work that came out on Salvo records. I produced John's Radio 3 series on the Art of Arranging, and realised he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz writing from Whiteman to Wheeler, and I also worked with him on many other Radio 3 projects including our 2005 trip to South Africa to look at the music scene there. Cleo's encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz singing as equally impressive and I produced the 4 part radio 3 series that she did with her daughter Jacqui on female jazz singers (http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8ac6a8f0d...0f0d76d8f147ed). I'm celebrating Cleo's long life and career, and happy to find recorded moments in it (from her early days with the JD7 to later work with John Williams) that confirm her status as a distinctive and original jazz vocalist.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's most interesting, and thanks, Alyn.

[Lat-Literal]

I should declare in interest - when I was 16 John Dankworth wrote Tom Sawyer's Saturday for the West Surrey Youth Orchestra in which I played. He (and Cleo) came and rehearsed with us, and I have seldom experienced such acute analysis of what we could do better, how to make it happen and (watching John rewrite some of the parts on stage as we rehearsed) how to overcome what he saw as his own shortcomings as a writer. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and although there are some things Cleo has recorded that wander along the boundaries of taste, I've never been less than impressed with her intuitive musicianship. If you want the story of the Wavendon "All Music" plan that blurred the boundaries between all genres, and was steered by John Ogdon, John Williams, Cleo and John, then check out my lengthy booklet on the "I Hear Music" 4 CD set of Cleo and John's work that came out on Salvo records. I produced John's Radio 3 series on the Art of Arranging, and realised he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz writing from Whiteman to Wheeler, and I also worked with him on many other Radio 3 projects including our 2005 trip to South Africa to look at the music scene there. Cleo's encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz singing as equally impressive and I produced the 4 part radio 3 series that she did with her daughter Jacqui on female jazz singers (http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8ac6a8f0d...0f0d76d8f147ed). I'm celebrating Cleo's long life and career, and happy to find recorded moments in it (from her early days with the JD7 to later work with John Williams) that confirm her status as a distinctive and original jazz vocalist.

Yes - thank you very much indeed Alyn.

It's not an easy answer to formulate, given the multiple issues on offer for consideration.

That's two different things. By "Euroclassicalising" I take you to mean jazz musicians adapting formal procedures and/or idiomatic characteristics on their own terms, as opposed to subordinating its spirit and procedures. I don't know enough about the Hot Club to say, but one factor in its popularity in the US during and after WW2 lay in the fact that the occupying forces that included GIs frequented the Parisian bar(s) where Django and Stephane performed, and of course Django would have reflected black GIs sense of outsider status, his background being Gypsy. It was a scenario in which neither party would have considered notions of purity of any sort in any field as other than a particularly unfortunate mixed metaphor, or at best the mistransplantation of an abstract principle from another field, my own view being that it's not best applied to art in general of any kind.

Thank you.

I take on board the points about the Hot Club. I am getting a bit muddled on the other points and wonder whether the Europeanism would be more easily decoupled from the classicism. There wasn't an overt connotation of colour in my use of the word "purity". I might, for example, have used it to distinguish between a musical griot and a Balkan pop group with the former being world music in a purer form. I'm just mulling over the concept of European or Europeanised jazz as distinct from American jazz. My tentative starting point would be that it is principally Scandinavian and crucially that it often tends towards a lack of swing. I'm not sure on the Dutch who I perceive as earlier in the main but it seems to me that they more obviously cut across continents stylistically and are lighter in tone than much of what has emerged in this century from further north. There is another tangential strand which involves 20th Century classical music in the US. Much of that is Euroclassical. A big question - which I have discussed elsewhere - concerns what is a genuine or even pure American symphony.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes - thank you very much indeed Alyn.


Thank you.

I take on board the points about the Hot Club. I am getting a bit muddled on the other points and wonder whether the Europeanism would be more easily decoupled from the classicism. There wasn't an overt connotation of colour in my use of the word "purity". I might, for example, have used it to distinguish between a musical griot and a Balkan pop group with the former being world music in a purer form. I'm just mulling over the concept of European or Europeanised jazz as distinct from American jazz. My tentative starting point would be that it is principally Scandinavian and crucially that it often tends towards a lack of swing. I'm not sure on the Dutch who I perceive as earlier in the main but it seems to me that they more obviously cut across continents stylistically and are lighter in tone than much of what has emerged in this century from further north. There is another tangential strand which involves 20th Century classical music in the US. Much of that is Euroclassical. A big question - which I have discussed elsewhere - concerns what is a genuine or even pure American symphony.

Disintanglement from notions of purity is a good starting point, then it's easier to deal with specifics.