Club job for N.Z. singer

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33155, 20 February 1973, Page 10

Club job for N.Z. singer

Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Frith Street, Soho, is to jazz musicians what Covent Garden is to opera singers, says an N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent in London.

“To have played at Ronnie’s is an accolade internationally,” wrote the “Sunday Times” on the club’s tenth anniversary in 1969, and the same applies today, when it is generally recognised as the finest jazz club | in Europe. To Malcolm McNeill, a ! Christchurch jazz singer, the ‘invitation to sing for 1 two weeks at Ronnie’s ■with Johnny Dankworth’s band is the finest thing that has happened in his musical For the last three years he has been trying to get a foot-;

hold on the London jazz scene, making a tenuous living from session singing with the Mike Sammes Singers and the occasional 8.8. C. radio programme. In New Zealand he will be remembered for his part in light entertainment television programmes, produced by John Barringham. “The job at Ronnie’s is a very welcome recognition,” said Mr McNeill. “The money is bad, but the club is such a good showcase that something interesting may come out of it.”

How did he get the invitation?

Things started to go well for him after the British composer, Richard Rodney Bennett, heard him sing, and recommended him to the well-known jazz musician and arranger, Johnny Dankworth.

Dankworth and his wife, !the singer. Cleo Laine, run a musical workshop-cum-con-cert hall at their Buckinghamshire home, Wavendon. Since they began their Wavendon All Music Plan two years ago with the intent to knock down the barriers between different forms of music,. their programmes have included anything from opera to pop and piano recitals, or their own forte, jazz.

Mr McNeill’s light tenor voice, unusual in jazz singing, appealed to Dankworth, and he was asked to sing at Wavendon. That successful experiment led to the job at Ronnie Scott’s. “My interests now are moving towards less categorisation in music. I suppose I’m just as much influenced by classical contemporary composers as by jazz,” Mr McNeill said. “For this reason the experience with Johnny Dankworth should be worth while.”