With which instrument was bandleader Johnny Dankworth associated?
John Dankworth on the clarinet at the age of 16, after hearing a record of the Benny Goodman Quartet. Soon afterwards, inspired by Johnny Hodges, he learned to play the alto saxophone. He began his career on the British jazz scene after studying at London's Royal Academy of Music (where his jazz interests were frowned upon) and then national service in the Royal Air Force, during which he played alto sax and clarinet for RAF Music Services. He attended the Paris Jazz Festival in 1949 and played with Charlie Parker. Parker's comments about Dankworth led to the engagement of the young British
John Dankworth John Dankworth Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinetist and writer of film scores. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, he was a music educator and also served as her music director. Born in Woodford, Essex, he grew up, within a family of musicians, in Hollywood Way, Highams Park, a suburb of Chingford, and attended Selwyn Boys' (Junior) School in Highams Park and later Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. He had violin and piano lessons before settling eventually