Chris Ingham    jazz pianist  composer  producer  author

SHORT VERSION

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Chris Ingham composes TV music and plays jazz piano.

 

As a composer, in 2017 he provided the soundtrack for the six-part documentary series Wartime Crime for Discovery/UKTV and the Tom Odell-directed How the Beatles Changed The World for Netflix, also appearing in the latter film as a talking head. Recent soundtracks include The Rise of the Superheroes (2018), Charles Manson: Music from an Unsound Mind (2019) and Days Of Rage: The Rolling Stones' Road To Altamont (2019). He has also written and recorded 27 soundtracks for Chrome Dreams' rock documentary DVD series 2006-2015, many currently viewable on Amazon Prime.

 

He formed his jazz quartet in 2013 and has led over 150 performances of his Hoagy Carmichael, Dudley Moore and Stan Getz repertoire projects all over the UK. He is also musical director/pianist/MC of film song repertory quintet Jazz At The Movies and Rebop, a modern jazz repertory sextet. 

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He has been a record producer for Ruthie Henshall and Joanna Eden and is the author of Rough Guide to The Beatles and Rough Guide to Frank Sinatra.

 

He curates jazz clubs in Diss (The Corn Hall) and Bury St Edmunds (Hunter Club).

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LONG VERSION

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Born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, Chris was supplanted to Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk aged ten. He played drums in the school punk band, violin in the school orchestra and guitar in the school Dixieland band. It's been a bit like that ever since.

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He studied Drama, English and Education at Warwick University 1981-85, acted a bit, played R&B guitar in the Locomotives and taught himself some jazz piano.

 

Relocating to London, the Locomotives produced two albums; From The Finest Rolling Stock (Media Burn 1986) and Bourgeois Voodoo (Big Beat 1987). Following a season at the Latchmere Theatre Battersea as a pantomime dame in 1985/6, Chris spent three years performing in rock venues, piano bars and comedy clubs (as sometime musical stooge to comedian Andrew Bailey) before returning to Suffolk in 1988 to marry Tracy and help raise Polly and Alexander. He still lives in Suffolk.

 

A songwriting collaboration with ex-Furniture vocalist Jim Irvin as Because produced an album long-listed for the first Mercury Music Prize, Mad Scared Dumb And Gorgeous (Haven 1992). A jazz collaboration with ex-Tommy Chase saxophonist Kevin Flanagan as the Flanagan Ingham Quartet produced two acclaimed albums, Zanzibar (Gray Brothers 1995) and Textile Lunch (33 Jazz 1999).

 

His current jazz activities include Getz: A Musical Portrait with Mark Crooks; saluting the Jazz of Dudley Moore and celebrating Hoagy Carmichael with his quartet featuring trumpeter Paul Higgs; accompanying singer Sara Dowling on her Jazz of Judy Garland project;  being MD/MC of Jazz At The Movies featuring singer Joanna Eden; leading the house trio at the monthly Jazz at the Hunter Club in Bury St Edmunds, Diss Jazz Club and The Apex's Sunday Songbook; coordinating Rebop, a modern jazz repertory sextet and making regular supporting appearances at the jazz joints of East Anglia to play with the likes of Peter King, Scott Hamilton, Tina May, Bobby Wellins, John Etheridge, Don Weller, Alan Barnes, Simon Spillett, Alan Skidmore, and many others.

 

Chris works as a freelance producer and arranger in his home studio and has produced albums for musical theatre superstar Ruthie Henshall, the aforementioned Jazz At The Movies, bossa nova chanteuse Saskia Bruin and Joanna Eden. He has also arranged and produced several albums for Union Square Music including the 60-track/4 CD album sets Simply The Songs Of Burt Bacharach (2008) and Simply Piano Moods (2009).

 

His recent recording projects include Stan (2019), a quartet album interpreting repertoire associated with saxophonist Stan Getz, Dudley (2017) a sixteen-track quartet album of Dudley Moore compositions, Hoagy (2014) a quartet album of Hoagy Carmichael tunes (listed as one of the Sunday Times Jazz Albums of 2014),  the second Jazz At The Movies album Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2015) and Joanna Eden's salute to Joni Mitchell Joni & Me.

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As a composer, in 2017 Chris provided the soundtrack for the six-part documentary series Wartime Crime for Discovery/UKTV and the Tom Odell-directed How the Beatles Changed The World for Netflix, also appearing in the latter film as a talking head. Recent soundtracks include Charles Manson: Music from an Unsound Mind (2019), Days Of Rage: The Rolling Stones' Road To Altamont (2019) and The Murder Network (2022).

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He has written and recorded over thirty soundtracks for Chrome Dreams' rock documentary DVD series 2006-2015, many currently viewable on Amazon Prime. He has produced various theatre scores, including Second Star To The Right by Papers' Weight Theatre (Edinburgh Fringe 2010). He has several pieces published in the KPM Production Music catalogue and his jazz trio arrangements of traditional Christmas melodies have been broadcast throughout the world.

 

As an erstwhile music journalist, Chris has written books on Billie Holiday (2000), The Beatles (2002) and Frank Sinatra (2005) and produced dozens of articles and reviews as himself (for Mojo magazine) and Kit Aiken (for Uncut). He was Mojo's jazz columnist 1994-2017 and has assembled and annotated numerous CD compilations and reissues, including Salvo's Slade series which won Music Week's Catalogue Marketing Award in 2007. He has appeared as a pundit on BBC Radio One, BBC TV's The One Show and various popular music documentaries.

 

As an erstwhile music educator, Chris was jazz piano and jazz voice tutor on Anglia Ruskin University's music degree course 1994-2016 and continues to teach privately. He has lectured on the Composition & Improvisation and Arranging courses on ARU's Popular Music BA degree and has provided arrangements for Keyboard Grades 5-8 on Trinity's Rock & Pop examination syllabus. He is one of the resident tutors at the newly formed Suffolk Jazz School.