About the Recording
Acclaimed vocalist, songwriter and stage actress Jacqui Dankworth MBE is pleased to bring you Windmills, a stunning new release, fueled by Memphis-born pianist Charlie Wood’s impeccable arrangements for Dankworth’s trio as well as the BBC Big Band, the Carducci String Quartet and the Bedazzle Strings. Following up on her adventurous 2022 outing with the Brodsky Quartet, Rocking Horse Road (“beautifully crafted … imparting rich layers of interpretive meaning” Gramophone), Dankworth sets her sights on a widely varied repertoire for Windmills, the centerpiece of which is Michel Legrand’s “Windmills of Your Mind,” serving as the title track.
Ms. Dankworth comes from an illustrious musical family, sometimes even referred to as “the Dankworth dynasty” or “UK jazz royalty”. Her parents, Dame Cleo Laine and the late Sir John Dankworth, were a musical power couple who transcended boundaries of genre, nationality and race to become genuine jazz superstars. Her brother, bassist and composer Alec Dankworth, is one of the most in-demand players in the business, having performed and recorded with Dave Brubeck, Van Morrison, Clark Terry, Mel Tormé, and many others.
Jacqui is radiant and boundlessly expressive on Windmills, taking to these varied sonic environments with polish and ease and a deep sense of connection to every line of every song. Wood’s arrangements are captured in their heightened nuance and stylistic flourish, bringing out the best in every player involved.
Wood’s leadoff arrangement of “London by Night,” by the late British songwriter Carroll Coates, swings hard and elaborately in 3/4. Dankworth learned it in her youth and once sang it, at some point in her late 30s, over the phone to Coates himself while he was visiting with her parents. “They couldn’t believe I knew all his songs,” Dankworth recalls with amusement. “Charlie and I both really love that song. Carroll has only just passed away [in October 2023]—goodness, you know, if he’d only had the chance to hear this version, I think he would have been thrilled.”
A strong Brazilian undercurrent emerges with “So Many Stars” by Sérgio Mendes—also recently departed—and the incomparable “Love Dance” by Ivan Lins. (Sammy Mayne has the brilliant alto saxophone solo on the former.) “I love Brazilian music,” says Dankworth, “and although lots of jazz singers sing it in Portuguese, Paul Williams’ English lyric for ‘Love Dance’ is very fine.”
Dankworth and Wood chose “Some Other Time” and “Lucky to Be Me” to perform for an evening of Leonard Bernstein works commissioned by the Jewish Music Institute of London. “I think Charlie wanted to put a different slant on it,” says Dankworth of these highly inventive arrangements for jazz quartet together with the Carducci String Quartet (Matthew Denton & Michelle Fleming, violins; Eoin Schmidt-Martin, viola; Emma Denton, cello).
Stephen Sondheim’s classic “Send in the Clowns” receives a beautiful rendering as well with the Carducci, and if it recalls Cleo Laine’s 1990 outing Cleo Sings Sondheim, Dankworth proceeds with self-awareness, not to mention the blessing and affirmation of Dame Cleo herself: “My mom wrote to me yonks ago when I was a youngster and said, ‘Jacqui, if you cut out all the great songs just because I’ve sung them, you’re doing yourself a disservice. All singers have sung these songs, they’re for everyone.’ I thought it was a lovely thing to say. And I thought, well, I’ve done a lot of work with Sondheim, I knew him, and I have a right to do those songs. I love this one and had to put it on the album.”
Among other highlights are “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” as an intricate samba-infused, Earth, Wind & Fire-esque odyssey; a haunting and ethereal 6/8 treatment of the traditional Irish “On Raglan Road,” (popularized by late folk singer Luke Kelly); and poignant songs by Jacques Brel (“If You Go Away”), Doobies frontman Michael McDonald (the soul-rich ballad “I Can Let Go Now”), and Dankworth herself, contributing the wistful quartet ballad “Will You Wait for Me?” “Funnily enough,” Dankworth recalls of writing it, “my father had not long died, and I was waiting for my mother to arrive, and she was late. I just sat at the piano and came up with that idea. It was a mixture of so many emotions, you know, having just lost my father, and now waiting for my mom. I came up with that melody and then put a lyric to it.”
Rhyming “dance” with “circumstance” in the bridge, she builds to “In the light of day / how my heart is open to you”—an emotional summation of her music itself, and a big reason why Windmills is poised to impact listeners far and wide. | 
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