[Dixielandjazz] Keith Ingham interviewed - London Telegraph

[Robert Ringwald]

Keith Ingham: 'the Complete Jazz Pianist'
by Edana Minghella
London Telegraph, August 22, 2012
When piano player Keith Ingham arranged previously unrecorded Arlen tunes for Peggy
Lee ("Love Held Lightly", Angel Records), she believed the stars were not in her
favour. Or that's the way the story goes. Maybe that's why she had a fight with him.
Keith is said to have retreated to a closet until Peggy calmed down. Talking to him
recently, I can believe that. He does not seem to be a man who would willingly enter
a storm. We are pushed for time but he exudes calm. He is smiley, eloquent and wry,
but also slightly reserved, contained. His music is more forthcoming. Here is joy,
or wit, or foot-tapping fun, or a touching tenderness. Playing the piano reveals
his stories.
Keith's long-time friend, the cornet-player Digby Fairweather, describes him as "the
complete jazz pianist. For consummate understanding of the music's vocabulary from
classic to contemporary, there are few others anywhere in the world to equal him."
Digby persuaded Keith to play at Newport Jazz last month. Newport, Isle of Wight,
that is. Slightly less well known for jazz than Newport, Rhode Island -- but give
it time.
Keith played two concerts at Newport Jazz Weekend, the first, a quartet with Digby;
the second, a trio with local Island musicians Sandy Suchodolski (double bass) and
en Black (drums). Keith has a hugely varied repertoire from stride through ragtime
to complex Gershwin-esque arrangements of mainly '30s standards. This is a man who
plays straight-ahead jazz with stunning natural talent and the serene confidence
that comes with years of experience. He brings the whole of the piano to life. "The
piano players I admire have two hands," he tells me, "and they use both of them."
Just listen to his solo performances of "This Is Always" or "You Go to My Head" (from
the album "Music, Music, Everywhere", 2004, Spotlite Records) to hear the grand scope
of Keith's musicianship.
Keith is, frankly, a legend, who has played with many legends. Profiles of Keith
often end up focusing on the musicians he has played with, and they do indeed make
an extraordinary list: Benny Goodman, Peggy Lee, Ben Webster, Harry Allen, Marty
Grosz, to name a few. But to see him through the lens of other musicians is to miss
the man himself.
Born on 5 February 1938 in Streatham, South London, to a working class family, Keith
developed his gift for playing the piano on a sad instrument that had been damaged
by numerous wartime bombings. His parents ("they made sacrifices") offered to pay
for piano lessons. Off he went to Miss Pierce for 4 or 5 lessons at two shillings
a time. Miss Pierce would point out notes with her knitting needles. One day, she
whispered to Keith that the Martians had landed, at which point his parents decided
he could do without lessons after all. So the young Keith hung around the local record
shop and at venues, listening, sitting in where he could, "absorbing by osmosis",
as he put it, all the music he could find.
Obviously outstandingly bright, he went up to Oxford. He read Mandarin, partly because
it offered a scholarship. But his jazz experience continued. David Watkins, Keith's
personal tutor, happened to be a jazz fanatic. At the end of each tutorial, Watkins
took out his collection of 78s and played them on an old gramophone: Bessie Smith,
Louis Armstrong, the greats from the '30s. Moreover, Keith moonlighted at Pebble
Mill Studios in Birmingham, playing for a children's TV show, having to climb over
the College walls on return to the university.
After Oxford and a stint in Paris, Keith moved to London in the late '60s, hanging
out in Soho and playing when he could. He says it was luck that enabled him to fall
in with the amazing talent appearing in London during that unique period. Keith recalls
how Peter Boizot had started Pizza Express, giving much needed work to jazz musicians.
Ronnie Scott's, then in Gerrard St ("I preferred the old Ronnie's"), featured many
now revered, largely American musicians, thanks to the reciprocal agreement between
US and UK unions allowing performers to play in each others' countries. Keith played
with Bruce Turner, the alto saxophonist, and Sandy Brown, clarinettist, and Wally
Fawkes and George Melly among others.
He felt a musical kinship with American players. He could play in any key, he says,
so players like saxophonist Ben Webster who often played in sharp keys, loved working
with him. It was his relationship with jazz singer and lyricist, Susannah McCorkle,
that eventually took him to America, to New York. Together they made a number of
recordings including "songbook" albums. One of these, "The Songs of Johnny Mercer"
(Alliance), released in the UK as "The Quality of Mercer", gave Keith his first Grammy
nomination. Coincidentally, the album includes Digby Fairweather on trumpet.
Keith arrived in New York with £50 in his pocket. He thought Susannah would get a
lot of work, but it was Keith who landed a gig at Ambrosia -- "a very fancy restaurant
on the East Side" -- a haunt of the musical elite such as Benny Goodman and Richard
Rodgers. Keith tells the story of Rodgers coming to the restaurant several times,
though ailing with throat cancer. Keith, "in awe", assumed Rodgers would not want
to hear his own music, so avoided playing his tunes. Then one evening, someone brought
him a note. It was from Rodgers, asking Keith to please play some of his music. Keith
obliged, and Rodgers sent another note expressing his approval.
His personal and professional relationship with Susannah McCorkle ended and they
both remarried. Tragically, she killed herself in 2001, at the age of 55. She almost
certainly had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and had apparently been troubled throughout
their relationship and beyond. Susannah's biography ("Haunted Heart", Linda Dahl,
2006), reveals that Keith occasionally bumped into her towards the end of her life.
He almost didn't recognise her because her mental health had so acutely affected
her appearance. This is not something he talks about in our interview, and I don't
ask. I sense he would retreat back into that closet. Understandably.
Keith's career thrived in New York. After the Ambrosia closed, he got a residency
in the Regency Hotel -- "a lovely piano bar" -- that lasted 11 years. He met a host
of jazz-loving movie stars there, including Dustin Hoffman and Jack Lemmon. He continued
working with a vast range of other musicians and vocalists, both live and recording.
In 1987 he recorded an album of Jule Styne tunes with Maxine Sullivan ("Together:
Maxine Sullivan Sings the Music of Jule Styne", Rhino). The two went to Styne's office.
"[Styne] was wonderful. He came in and said 'I'm looking forward to hearing this
CD. But while you're here, listen to what I just wrote'. He goes to a little piano
and starts playing songs. He gave us one, and said, 'Would you record this?' We said
sure."
Once the album was complete, Keith and Maxine were invited to Styne's apartment.
Styne told them that the paintings on the wall were painted by Ira Gershwin and given
to him by George. During the visit, the phone rang, and it was Irving Berlin, by
then a very old man. Ever modest, Keith was awestruck. Here he was, sitting in a
New York apartment with Jule Styne, Gershwin paintings on the wall, and Irving Berlin
on the phone. "I thought, this is why I'm here. I felt very humble being in that
company."
Keith emerges as a strong advocate for women in jazz: "Jazz has always been a male
preserve". He lists an impressive number of women musicians and writers that he admires
and about whom he appears to have an encyclopaedic knowledge: Kathy Stobart, Betty
Smith, Mary Lou Williams, Marjorie Hyams, Ann Ronell, Dorothy Fields ("She's a hero
of mine. Or --" he smiles. "-- a heroine"). He has nothing but admiration for the
female vocalists, from Ella and Sarah through to Carmen McRae to Barbra Streisand:
"amazing". He delights in telling me that he recorded a whole album of tunes written
by women, sung by Barbara Lea ("Fine and Dandy", 1996, Challenge). And he continues
to work with women, whether well known or rising stars. Just last year he arranged
and recorded an album ("Happy") with Lisa Maxfield, only her second album and self-produced.
"You mentored her?" I ask. "I suppose so", he shrugs. "I'm not a vocal coach."
Fairweather describes Keith as "an absolute joy to work with". Indeed, his generosity
towards other musicians is marked. "The Keith Ingham New York 9", volumes 1 and 2
(Jump Records 1994) and then volume 3 in 2001, are excellent and joyous introductions
to Keith's versatility and elegance as a player. But the other musicians -- in trios
through to octets -- are celebrated. Sometimes a tune is even given over to a soloist
without any accompaniment, such as the wonderful track "Too Late Now", one of the
tenderest versions I've ever heard, played solo by guitarist James Chirillo. I also
noticed how generous Keith was at his concerts, where, for example, he made a point
of giving prominence to 21-year old Suchodolski on double bass. I say as much to
Keith, complimenting Sandy on how well he managed working with a piano player with
a strong left-hand. Keith agrees, but adds "I try to keep out of the way" and somehow
that well-known jazz phrase seems very telling.
Two things concern Keith about the current jazz scene. One fear is that the great
music and musicians of the 30s, 40s and 50s are being ignored and forgotten: "People
seem to think jazz begins and ends with Coltrane, or perhaps Charlie Parker." And
he is worried that reduced opportunities to perform have led to more musicians becoming
teachers, producing technically skilled, extremely proficient, graduate performers.
It doesn't impress him. "It's like photocopying" he says, becoming animated. "It
stifles originality. A teacher can tell you this is how Coltrane would play this
scale, but he can't tell you where it's coming from, what's from inside. And Monk.
Monk is unique. There's nobody else like him. You can't have a school of Thelonious
Monk. His compositions are so personal. He couldn't learn that from a course. He
learnt it from listening to the old Harlem stride players that he loved, or Duke
Ellington. Monk's compositions are extraordinary and structured brilliantly. Even
the simplest compositions, like "Misterioso", it's so beautiful and it's just sixths.
It's amazing."
His advice to those of us learning our trade as jazz musicians? "Stay away from the
educators. Follow the music you love but don't polarise -- listen to everything.
Keep the spontaneity there. And don't expect everyone to like you."
As the interview finishes, I can't resist asking him about an incident I'd heard
about from Keith's early life. In a piano bar in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong
during the Cold War, a cabaret singer belts out her tunes. All eyes are on her. She's
accompanied by a young English pianist, just out of school. It's Keith. He has had
secret intensive lessons in Mandarin and Cantonese, so despite appearances, understands
everything he hears. Which is why he has been recruited. Because the bar is frequented
by top Chinese Communists, who may or may not be plotting against the West. "Things
were very, very tense," says Keith. "My cover was blown. I had to be rushed out of
there in a hurry, in an RAF Comet." I'm taken aback. "You were in danger?" I ask.
"Yes," he says. "I don't want to talk about it."
Misterioso indeed.
-30



-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

The crime of taxation is not in the taking of it. It's in the way it's spent.
--Will Rogers March 20, 1932