*”Steely Jazz”-with the ‘”Chris Ingham Quintet”-at the ‘Pizza Express Jazz Club’ – Soho London W1

A couple of weeks back my London Shoes ventured down to the Soho district of London, for the specific purpose of visiting the “Pizza Express Jazz Club” in Dean Street – where I had tickets to see the ‘Chris Ingham Quintet’ perform their highly acclaimed “Steely Jazz” set.

There were a number of reasons for me wanting to attend this specific performance – one being that it gave me the opportunity to meet up again with my former drum teacher ‘George Double’.

During the mid to late 1990’s I was manager of a bank in Hackney – and one of my customers was the young musician ‘George Double’ – at that time George was starting to make a name for himself as a drummer on the London music scene. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had always fancied myself as a drummer, and for a year or so I used have drumming lessons from George – after work, in the music room of his ground floor flat in Hackney……some 25yrs ago now – and I have very happy memories of those times.

George has subsequently gone on to bigger and better things – as he is now recognised as one of the London (and way beyond) jazz scene’s, most accomplished drummers – having worked with a whole load of artists including:- Dame Shirley Bassey / Marc Almond / Mica Paris / Paul Jones / Ruthie Henshall / John Etherridge / Art Themen  to name just a small few – he’s also the senior drum consultant for Trinity College – organising and running drum seminars all over the world – plus an author of drum tutelage books and also curator of the Southwold/Frinton/Hadleigh jazz clubs.

Although a freelance drummer – George is very much part of the Chris Ingham Band set up and has been for a number of years, touring and playing all over the place with them.

Followers and regular readers of my London Shoes’ stuff may well recall that, before the Covid lockdown years, my London Shoes would often publish blog articles covering-off performances by the Chris Ingham’s band (with George on drums) – especially when they played London venues, such as The Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall / the Crazy Coqs Club in Piccadilly  / St. John Smith’s Square–Westminster / Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho / the 606 Club in Chelsea / the Other Palace Theatre–Victoria….plus loads more other clubs on the London music scene, and some even way outside London.

However, the Covid lockdowns sort of put an end to my London Shoes’ activity of going to see George and the band perform, and it’s fair to say that I got out of the habit of following the band around. The other mitigating factor was that when the band eventually got back on-the-road again – the majority of their gigs tended to be played at venues/clubs outside of London, mainly in the Suffolk/Essex areas, as well as up and down the country – and thus not logistically possible for my London Shoes to get to.

However – I continued to follow the fortunes of the band on-line and read recently that they were currently touring, performing their ‘Steely Jazz’ set – and that they were booked to play the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Dean Street–Soho, a venue that was very easy for my Shoes’ to get to and from…….and so I felt I just had to get hold of a ticket to rekindle my following of the band and their exploits.

Before I go into my coverage of the actual event – I should probably provide a little bit of background history of the venue….the Pizza Express Jazz Club.

Situated in the basement of the Pizza Express outlet in Dean Street-Soho W1 – the current building dating back to 1878 when it used to be a ‘Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear’ and then later on it became ‘The Royal Ear Hospital’.

In 1969 it became the Pizza Express Jazz Club – and throughout the past decades top jazz musicians from all over the world, plus those from many other music genres – have all played the Dean Street club – the likes of Gregory Porter / Jamie Cullen / Amy Winehouse / Van Morrison / Mose Allison / Charlie Watts plus many many more, have all played the venue – it really is a top notch jazz club.

Today. there are a few Pizza Express Jazz Club’s in existence, (the other London based ones are in Chelsea and Holborn) and collectively they host around 1,500 shows per year.

So – getting back to the event in question – apart from catching up with my old mate George and the Chris Ingham band again, following an absence of at least 5 years – my other interest in this particular event was the fact that I am, and have always been, a massive fan of the US band “Steely Dan” – and the Chris Ingham Quintet’s ‘Steeley Jazz’ set was a compliment to the work of ‘Walter Becker’ & ‘Donald Fagan’ the 2 principal songwriters of the band ‘Steely Dan’.

Steely Dan were formed by Fagan (keyboards & vocals) & Becker (guitar & vocals) in New York, way back in 1971.

Fagan & Becker started off principally as just songwriters, not performers – but nothing of any commercial significance happened, with the exception of the song ‘I mean to shine’ which was recorded by Barbara Streisand and appeared on her 1971 released ‘Barabara Joan Streisand’ album.

After a while the Becker & Fagan relocated to LA to work with famous record producer Gary Katz – who hired them as staff songwriters for the label he was working for.

However, Becker & Fagan began to find that the musicians they were working with, struggled to interpret and handle the complexity of the material they were writing – and so they formed their own band ‘Steely Dan’ – (named after the steam powered ‘dildo’ in the 1959 published William Burroughs’ novel ‘Naked Lunch’).

In 1972 Steely Dan released their debut album ‘Cant Buy a Thrill’ – which produced 2 US Top 10 singles ‘Reeling in the Years’ and ‘Do it Again’.

Their 1973 released album ‘Countdown to Ecstasy ‘– provided 2 more US Chart singles ‘Showbiz Kids’ and ‘My Old School’.

1974’s ‘Pretzel Logic’ album spawned the US and UK hit ‘Rikki don’t lose that number’.

Despite a couple of breaks in the Becker & Fagan’s partnership – Steely Dan went on to release 9 studio albums in total, including the classics:- ‘Katy Lied’ (1976) and ‘Aja’ (1977) – plus a few compilation ones and ‘live’ albums.

Walter Becker died in 2017 – but Donald Fagan decided to keep going under the Steely Dan name and has gone on to release a few solo albums.

So – getting back to the Chris Ingham Quintet ‘Steely Jazz’ gig – at the Pizza Express Jazz Club – it was so good to see the band perform ‘live’ again.

Chris Ingham formed the band back in 2013 – and since then they have gone from strength to strength.

As with many jazz orientated bands the line up can be flexible, in correlation with the material being performed – the band operates as either a quartet / a trio / a quintet – when performing its various sets that include:- ‘Hoagy’ – covering the music of the famous American musician-composer and songwriter ‘Hoagy Carmichael’ / The ‘Jazz of Dudley Moore’ / The Music of Stan Getz / Jazz at the Movies / the music of Gil Evans / the jazz of Judy Garland ….and of course, the now critically acclaimed and popular ‘Steely Jazz’, which my London Shoes had come to see at the Pizza Express Jazz Club.

The one thing the Chris Ingham Quintet’s ‘Steely Jazz’ set is not, is a tribute act performance.

‘Steely Jazz’ is the Chris Ingham Quintet’s interpretation of Steely Dan’s unique music – with their jazz chords – complex compositions – cryptic and cynical lyrics – intricate arrangements – all of which the Chris Ingham Quintet execute and elaborate on superbly.

So – having settled down at my table, tucking in to a tasty pizza, washed down with a few ‘gold watches’ (doubles of course) – my London Shoes sat back and thoroughly enjoyed the Chris Ingham Quintet ‘Steely Jazz’ performance, that covered off many of my personal ‘Dan’ favourites like ‘Haitian Divorce’ / ‘Any Major Dude’ / ‘Black Friday’ – plus a few of the more obscure tracks from the Steely Dan back catalogue.

The Pizza Express Jazz Club was sold out for the gig – and the audience were treated to a great night of music entertainment that really did justice to the excellent material of Steely Dan – and I was pleased to get the opportunity to catch up again with my old mate George Double.

So – here’s hoping my London Shoes will get to see the band (and meet up with George) again and publish further London Shoes blog articles relating to future performances at London venues.

Hope you enjoyed this piece and the photos that accompany it.

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See below the entire gallery of photos taken to accompany this blog article