In 2009 a musician friend in London, England, Flora de Galles, who is involved in managing gigs for jazz artists, sent me a couple of tracks recorded by the brilliant Jacqui Dankworth (fabulous voice!), daughter of the great British bandleader / saxophonist / composer Johnny Dankworth and his wife the wonderful vocalist Cleo Laine.

I was inspired to write – on my own initiative - string arrangements for both pieces, but the record had already been mastered and was in production, therefore too late for my arrangements to be incorporated.

The original of "Prayer for Peace"  is an instrumental written by Bob Mintzer (reeds, Yellowjackets), to which Jacqui composed the lyric.

Jacqui has kindly and graciously given her permission to post this song on my FB page.

Prayer for Peace

Interlude for Piano and Strings

String arrangement (with Gwen Stefani's vocal) I wrote and conducted for No Doubt's CD "Return of Saturn", to which I added light percussion. The producer had Mike Garson lay an intense and dense piano solo over the strings. That "version" is located as a "hidden track" 00:40 after the last song.

Paul Buckmaster

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