Chris Attwell

Chris Attwell is an English bass player and composer born in Bournemouth, England. He took an interest in music by taking up piano lessons at the age of 9. At the age of 12 he stumbled upon the bass while in a music shop to buy a guitar for his 13th birthday. He was introduced to bass players such as Flea, Jaco Pastorius, Victor Wooten, Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham and Tim Commerford. He was heavily influenced by genres such as funk, fusion, rock, blues, jazz and gospel music and was predominantly self taught until he moved to London at the age of 18.

Immersed in music from a young age he began working as a bass player in his hometown from the age of 13. At the age of 14 he was teaching and performing with other musicians on the local music scene. After two years of music studies he moved to London to complete a Bachelors degree in music which helped to shape his musical trajectory. He became known on the London music scene for a jam that he started with his peers and started working as a session player for various bands and artists. Some of the artists he has worked for as a side-man to date are; Blue, Rainer Hersch, Perico Sambeat, Jorge Pardo and was invited by Yamaha to collaborate at La Rioja drum festival in 2017 with artists such as; Don Formularo, Josh Dion and many others.

At the age of 25 he moved to Valencia, Spain to study a Masters in Music Performance at Berklee College of Music. He has received tuition from some of the best jazz musicians internationally such as; Laurence Cottle, Janek Gwizdala, Gary Willis and Perico Sambeat. 

He started his award winning jazz/rock/fusion project which now goes under the name Valmuz. This project founded by Chris and Peter Connolly went with Victor Jimenez and Joshua Wheatley to play their first gig at an International Jazz competition in Romania in 2019. After having won the first prize, his band went on to record an album entitled “Three Days”. They most recently released their new big band album “Sinergia” which was recorded towards the end of 2020.

Chris is currently in Almeria, Spain where he is working as a teacher and bass player in the Clasijazz big band.