The most flexible and expressive voice of her generation..." - The Observer, Jazz CD Of The Week.

There's no doubt about it, Jacqui Dankworth is a remarkable artist of the highest calibre. She has toured with the Brodsky Quartet and recorded with them on their latest CD, alongside such guests as Sting, Elvis Costello, Bjork, Ian Shaw and Sir Paul McCartney. She featured on Courtney Pine’s album Devotion and sang alongside him at the Royal Festival Hall, as part of the London Jazz Festival. Several tunes from her album As The Sun Shines Down On Me made the Jazz FM play list, and she receives repeated play on BBC Radio 2, especially on Michael Parkinson’s Sunday Supplement.

Reaction to her second album for Candid Records, Detour Ahead was even more enthusiastic than for her first, including glowing reviews worldwide and a high rating by Mojo. Jacqui has also hosted the show Jazz Sirens on BBC Radio 3, with her mother, Dame Cleo Laine, playing and discussing tracks by the most famous female jazz vocalists. A treat for fans of the Dankworth dynasty!

Though there is jazz in her blood, Jacqui is very much her own creative force. Her first successes in the world of The Arts were not as the versatile vocalist we know her for now, but as an actress in a series of highly acclaimed roles on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and John Dexter's Company.

Jacqui soon migrated to the West End, where leading roles in musicals beckoned. Having proved herself an accomplished actress and singer, a perfomer and entertainer, she found herself pulled inexorably towards her greatest passion: music.

After a tour of Hawaii and the Far East with brother Alec Dankworth's quintet, she worked with award-winning jazz composer and saxophonist Tim Garland on his song cycle Songs Of Love And Liberty, alongside Norma Winstone and Christine Tobin. Opportunities flowed in, and in early 1998 she embarked on a major world tour as guest vocalist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, bringing her vocal talents to an ever-wider audience. She also collaborated on a newly-commissioned jazz setting of A E Housman’s poetry, which was voted by The Times as Record of the Year.

By 1999, her reputation was spreading and Jacqui was asked to perform new arrangements of Gershwin’s classics with the BBC Big Band at the Barbican, London and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Next, came Field of Blue: a simple acoustic band performing mostly original compositions, which recorded two albums, receiving high praise and rave reviews.

Reviewers also loved the 2001 Black Box release with James Pearson, For All We Know. The Sunday Times described Jacqui as ‘one of our finest singers regardless of category’. JD then appeared as a featured singer on Gerard Presencer's album, The Optimist, another critical success.

As if her life was not busy enough, Jacqui then formed the three-part harmony group The Passion, with singers Liane Carroll and Sara Colman. In 2003, this unique group released an album of contemporary and original work called One Good Reason. Her diversity of interest has taken her to new realms, she sang the theme tune for the BBC Radio 4 series Coming Alive and her vocals featured on the soundtracks of two British movies. More recently she sang with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Stephen Sondheim Special, alongside Brian Kennedy and Maria Ewing. She also sang at Alastair Cook’s Thanksgiving Service.

Jacqui is currently gigging regularly, has made numerous radio and tv appearances, while her album Detour Ahead remains in high demand. No surprise that The Birmingham Evening Post described it in the following glowing terms:

It has never been easy for the jazz singer, working in the most revealing and exposed of musical areas - but now the bar is higher than ever, and it’s a bar Jacqui Dankworth sails over in style... There's an increased sophistication, a fine tuning of the elements, that make Detour Ahead her best record yet and one which puts her firmly in the top division.

Jacqui is poised to commence work on her new album later this year. With song ideas beginning to flow, this really is an exciting time for her, and for all lovers of quality jazz. If there is a “Detour Ahead”, it appears to be taking JD to new and exhilarating places!