Cleo Laine, Just as Ellington Had Hoped : Jazz: The British singer might not have come to the United States had it not been for the legendary artist. Now she’s recording with his orchestra.

British singer Cleo Laine, whose first concert in America in 1972 was at the insistence of Duke Ellington, has just cut her first recording with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Laine is cool, laid back and unassuming and, at the same time, a queenly grande dame of jazz singing. Confidence allows her to put her head back, open her mouth and sing the bent notes, the high, the low, the sexy, the plaintive, the exuberant.

John Dankworth, arranger, leader, saxophonist and Laine’s husband, says, “I think Cleo might be coming into her greatest period in jazz.”

Preparing for the new recording, which he conducted, Dankworth found some tapes Ellington made. “I noticed ‘Solitude,’ ” Dankworth says. “There he was, playing solo piano. It wasn’t in Cleo’s key. Then--I couldn’t believe it--he modulated to Cleo’s key and started playing an improvisation. It was almost like he’d been waiting 20 years for someone to sing the tune.

“So Duke plays the first chorus and Cleo comes in to sing the second chorus. Then we lose Duke for half a minute and bring in Mercer’s band. At the end, Mercer’s band and Duke are together. We were tickled pink with it, as we say in England.”

He was referring to Mercer Ellington, who has led the band since his father’s death in 1974.

RCA will release the record in May.

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Laine admits that she hadn’t wanted to come to America when the Duke commanded that she must in 1972. She thought her career in England--where both she and Dankworth were born in 1927--was big enough. She has said she was lazy. “That was one reason,” she says now. “And you knew nobody was going to notice an extra singer coming over from England.”

She was wrong about that. “We did a concert in Alice Tully Hall and got a review in the New York Times most artists would give their right arm for,” she says. “It said, ‘The British have been hiding one of their national treasures.’ ”

The next year Laine sang in Carnegie Hall.

As she sang in other American cities, she says, “The review went before us. Everybody has got to live up to their review--or not. We managed to do that here for a year. People rebooked us.

“That was without a record. It was quite unusual in those days to get concert work without a record.”

Laine was Julie in “Show Boat” in London in 1971 and Princess Puffer in “Drood” on Broadway in 1985-86. She recorded “Porgy and Bess” with Ray Charles, began singing classical art songs in concerts in 1966.

Could a singer so versatile have sung opera? “At the Michigan Opera Theater I did ‘The Merry Widow’ and ‘The Seven Deadly Sins,’ ” she says. “I did that first at the Edinburgh Festival in 1961, then at the Sadler’s Wells Theater in London. At the time I got my first record in the hit parade I was a diva at Sadler’s Wells.

“The record in the hit parade was a country-Western song, ‘You’ll Answer to Me.’ I didn’t sing it country-Western.”

Dankworth chimes in, “It was a pretty rotten song in my humble opinion, but it had something the public liked. It got you bookings.”

Dankworth isn’t willing to say his wife is the best jazz singer around, though it’s clear he thinks so. He says carefully, “I think Cleo is doing as much as anybody in her generation for jazz singing today. She has made some terrific albums. She has an individual style which so very few singers ever get.”

Laine is a natural contralto whose range extends high. “She is very choosy about keys,” Dankworth says. “She could sing in any key, but if it’s not comfortable she won’t.”

Would this couple have gone as far in show business without each other? “I’m sure John would,” Laine says. “As for me, I don’t know.” “You’re not such a go-getter, are you?” Dankworth asks gently.

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“I was lucky in getting with the Johnny Dankworth Seven,” Laine says. Otherwise, she thinks she’d probably have tried to sing pop and be a has-been by now. “I learned a lot about music within the Dankworth group, enough for me to break away and go into acting.”

Her son Stuart from her first marriage is a graphic designer in Northern California. The Dankworths have two children. Alec plays bass and Jacqueline is a singer-actress.

The couple has been honored by the Queen. He is a Commander of the British Empire and she has the Order of the British Empire.