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Cleo Laine: Acclaimed jazz singer dies aged 97
She was the first British singer to win a Grammy in a jazz category and performed with all the greats.
www.bbc.com
Jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, famous for her huge vocal range and wide musical repertoire, has died at the age of 97.
In a long career, Dame Cleo was the first British singer to win a Grammy Award in a jazz category and performed with all the greats - including Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.
However, her greatest collaborator was her husband, late musician and composer John Dankworth, with whom she established her career in the 1950s.
With her electric green eyes, corkscrew hair and husky contralto voice, Dame Cleo became the most recognisable British jazz singer in history.
She had a four-octave vocal range and the ability to perform everything from Schoenberg to a Spike Milligan hit about a man with too many tonsils.
One critic said that she was one of Britain's two great contributions to jazz - the other being gin.
And the Sunday Times once described her as "quite simply the best singer in the world."
