Its just been announced that the great British female jazz singer of modern times, Dame Cleo Laine, passed away yesterday (25.7.25) at the age of 97, close on the heels of the passing of the great Connie Francis recently. Two totally different genres of music but both excellent in their own fields. Dame Cleo's real name was Clementina Campbell and she has been a National Treasure here in the UK all my life. She was also a good actress too, very many years ago, over 40 at least, I saw her in a revival of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical "Show Boat" at the London Palladium where she played Julie, one of the leading roles and so got to sing "Can't Help Loving That Man" and "Bill" and was absolutely magnificent. She was married (and then widowed) to the saxophonist Johnny Dankworth and they often appeared together, their daughter Jacqui Dankworth is also an accomplished singer. R.I.P. Dame Cleo.