Neil Ardley

Neil Richard Ardley (26 May 1937 – 23 February 2004) was a prominent English jazz composer and pianist, who also made his name as the author of more than 100 popular books on science and technology, and on music.

Neil Ardley was born in Wallington, Surrey.

He attended Wallington County Grammar School and at the age of thirteen started to learn the piano and later the saxophone.

He read Chemistry at Bristol University, where he also played both piano and saxophone in jazz groups, and from which he graduated in 1959 with a BSc.

Ardley moved to London and studied arranging and composing with Ray Premru and Bill Russo from 1960 to 1961.

In the late 1960s, encouraged by record producer and impresario Denis Preston, Ardley began composing in earnest, combining classical and jazz methods.

In 1960, Ardley married Bridget Gantley, and the couple had one daughter.

With Bridget he acted as a researcher for the BBC television programme Mastermind.

Ardley joined the editorial staff of the World Book Encyclopedia in 1962, when the London branch of the American publisher was producing an international edition.

This took four years, during which time he developed the skill of editing and writing introductory material for the young.

He joined the John Williams Big Band as pianist, writing both arrangements and new compositions, and from 1964 to 1970 was the director of the newly formed New Jazz Orchestra, which employed some of the best young musicians in London, including Ian Carr, Jon Hiseman, Barbara Thompson, Dave Gelly, Mike Gibbs, Don Rendell, and Trevor Tomkins.

After a brief period working for Hamlyn, he became a freelance editor in 1968 (which enabled him to continue with his musical career).

The New Jazz Orchestra album Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1969), taking some inspiration from the orchestral jazz of Gil Evans, is now considered a classic of British jazz.

While it includes intricate arrangements of Nardis by Miles Davis and Naima by John Coltrane, the rest of the pieces on the album tend to look beyond the dominant African-American influences and were composed by young writers associated with the orchestra - including Ardley himself on the extended title track, Michael Garrick, Mike Gibbs, Howard Riley and Mike Taylor.

Although not issued under the New Jazz Orchestra name, Ardley's subsequent releases Greek Variations and Other Aegean Exercises (1970) and Symphony of Amaranths (1972) continued the orchestra and its aesthetic in all but name, and were critically acclaimed.

His rich orchestrations were augmented in the 1970s by the addition of synthesisers.

In the 1970s, he moved into writing introductory books, mostly for children, on natural history (especially birds), science and technology, and music, such as What Is It?.

Just as his composing and performance had been moved forward by the introduction and development of technology, so too with his publishing career, as computers began to become more and more important.

Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows reached number 22 in the New Musical Express top 24 albums of 1976.

Duncan Heining judges it to be "his masterpiece".

However, as he began work on an all-electronic album in 1980, Ardley's recording contract was suddenly terminated, and he fell back on his writing and publishing career.

He continued to play and compose, especially with Zyklus, the electronic jazz group he formed with composer (and former student) John L. Walters, Derbyshire musician Warren Greveson and Ian Carr.

In 1984 Ardley began to write mainly for Dorling Kindersley, producing a series of books which included the best-selling (over three million copies worldwide) and award-winning The Way Things Work (1988), illustrated by David Macaulay, as well as the Eyewitness volume Music, first published in 1989.

Singing in local choirs in the later 1990s led Ardley to start composing choral music, and this occupied most of his musical attention until his death.

At the time of his death, Ardley had begun to gig and record again with a slimmed down Zyklus consisting of himself, Warren Greaveson, and Nick Robinson.

When he retired in 2000 Ardley had written 101 books, with total sales of about ten million.

In 2003 he married Vivien Wilson.

He died in Milford, Derbyshire, where Vivien still lives.

She published a full length biography of Neil Ardley in 2023.

Selected choral compositions include: