Search for Peace Ingrid James & Pete Churchill

• 1The Immigrant (Arr. Pete Churchill)04:54
• 2Whistling Away the Dark (Arr. Pete Churchill)04:27
• 3I Can Let Go Now (Arr. Pete Churchill)05:51
• 4Search for Peace (Arr. Pete Churchill)06:18
• 5Stars (Arr. Pete Churchill)05:11
• 6You Must Believe in Spring (Arr. Pete Churchill)04:35
• 7Something Worth Waiting For (Con Alma) (Arr. Pete Churchill)04:29
• 8Estate (Arr. Pete Churchill)07:06
• 9We Will Meet Again (Arr. Pete Churchill)05:08
• 10Alone Together (Arr. Pete Churchill)03:26
• 11And I Love Him04:57
• Total Runtime56:22

Info for Search for Peace

An album of deeply moving yet also uplifting and comforting jazz standards, both mainstream and modern, centered around the experience of loss, grief, love and hope.

Ingrid James is a Queensland jazz vocalist whose career has taken her to London (including Ronnie Scott’s), Paris, Monte Carlo, Nice, Marseilles, Toulon and Prague, as well as gigs and festivals around Australia. For this beautiful album, partnered by acclaimed UK pianist and arranger Pete Churchill, with Samuel Vincent on bass and Lachlan Hawkins on drums, she offers us a unique take on classic and vibrant songs by Michel Legrand, Henry Mancini, Bill Evans, The Beatles and more.

‘Search for Peace is close to my heart,’ says Ingrid, ‘as every song has a special meaning. Having lost both my parents during Covid in late 2020, it has been a time for reflecting, re-purposing, finding simplicity in life, processing grief, and turning toward those who are special to me – my family, friends, musicians and community projects.’

The album opens with an original called ‘The Immigrant’ dedicated to Ingrid’s mother, who left her native Finland at 19 to ‘search for the sun’ in Australia, but had to bury her seven-month-old baby daughter on the way. With an almost film noir feel, the song perfectly captures the collision of hope for the future with grief in the present, with a constant sense of moving onwards, caught between two worlds.

The rest of the album is typical of Ingrid’s brilliantly eclectic approach to repertoire, from the familiar to the criminally neglected, reaching right back to the 1930s for the Broadway-tune-turned-swing-classic ‘Alone Together’, into the 21st century with the aching beauty of ‘Stars’ and a languorous, laid-back ‘Something Worth Waiting For’, while showcasing standards from the 1960s, 70s and 80s across the spectrum from jazz to pop – all seamlessly blended together into a rich and nuanced journey through love, loss, and restoration.

Ingrid James, vocals
Pete Churchill, piano
Samuel Vincent, double bass
Lachlan Hawkins, drums

Ingrid James
is a Queensland-based, Australian jazz singer and voice educator. She has recently completed her Masters of Music Studies (Vocal Pedagogy) at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and has a private studio practice for 20 years. Alongside her private teaching practice, she has been mentor, tutor and guest lecturer at various music institutions and schools as well as a facilitator of workshops in Brisbane with visiting national and international artists.

As a singer, recording artist and lyricist, Ingrid has had the privilege of being invited to work with talented musicians from around the world including Bill Watrous and Eric Marienthal on two recording projects based in Los Angeles with San Gabriel 7 called "Lost My Heart" and "Blue Confluence".

Her local interests include producing and hosting a Jazz Singers' Jam Night since 2001, principally at the Brisbane Jazz Club). She is also Festival Director for the Brisbane Vocal Jazz Festival (from 2016 to the present) and Producer of International Jazz Day 2019 @ Brisbane Jazz Club/MBS Light (sponsored by Brisbane City Council), Producer/Host - Voices of Tomorrow (2020 to present) for high school jazz instrumentalists and vocalists.

Professor Pete Churchill, Royal Academy of Music, London observed when reviewing a recent international CD joint project with Alexis Tcholakian called "Trajectoire", that "most musicians begin their musical journey within their own community - this is where they receive the support and encouragement they need to develop and hone their skills. As time progresses they play further afield and interact with an increasingly wider circle of musicians and this can often take them away from home - a necessary migration in order to gain a broader perspective on the music they make. A few of these artists, a very few, spread out beyond their homeland and begin to take part in the global experience of making music...Ingrid James is one of these. A restless, spirit, Ingrid ventures far beyond Australian shores to Europe to record with an impressive array of international musicians - and yet, most importantly, she never forgets where she's from. She manages to balance this strong global instinct with a massive commitment to making music in her own community...a rare thing indeed...".

Newmarket Music has released 5 of Ingrid's CD's, Essence (all standards with Matt Baker and Adrian Cunningham), Circumflex (duo CD with John Reeves, piano), Portrait (joint project with Ingrid James and Louise Denson - originals and re-arrangements of a few standards), Pangaea (collaboration with Paul Armstrong and Todd Harrison - all 70's songs set to South American rhythms with jazz musicians), and Trajectoire, a joint project between Ingrid (lyricists) and French pianist/composer Alexis Tcholakian (recorded in Paris and Australia) as well as joint-project, "Colours of your Love", by 9 piece ensemble Wild Silk Strings Project (a mix of originals and re-arrangements of songs by Erik Satie, KD Lang, Carole King, Supertramp), released nationally by MGM's The Planet Company in early September 2018.

This album contains no booklet.