Johnny Dankworth Three Classic Albums Plus (2-CD)

AVID Jazz continues with its Four Classic album series with a re-mastered 2CD release from Johnny Dankworth complete with original artwork and liner notes. 'The Vintage Years'; 'Collaboration'; 'England's Ambassador of Jazz' plus the 7 inch E.P. 'The Criminal O.S.T' If ever there was a thing called musical royalty in the U.K. then we would have to say that it would have been John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. Alone and together these two giants of British jazz certainly held the royal crown for over fifty years. Here we focus on the solo career of John Dankworth with three hard to find albums and a film score E.P. (remember those?) from the 1950's and early 1960's. In his early days John answered to the name, Johnny and was both an excellent jazz musician, playing primarily alto sax (after Johnny Hodges) and clarinet (after Benny Goodman) as well as a fine writer, arranger and producer. For those of us who perhaps only remember Dankworth in his later years performing with his wife, Cleo Laine, it is worth remembering that in the 1940's and 1950's when he started his jazz career after his army National Service, he was playing alongside the likes of Charlie Parker, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington! His hard driving big band was a popular feature on the jazz scene on both sides of the Atlantic. Great names that passed through his ranks include, Tubby Hayes, Dudley Moore, Don Rendall, Kenny Wheeler, Tony Coe and Peter King.