For over 20 years, Coogan has led the Chris Coogan Quartet, a combo with a repertoire that includes straight-ahead jazz, fusion jazz and boogie-woogie.

S’Funky, Coogan’s first jazz album containing his original songs, was released in 1995 and re-released in 1999. It features the song Cranberry Isle which took the top jazz prize in the 1997 John Lennon Songwriting Competition. Coogan’s credits as a jazz musician include performing with the late Sal Salvador, Bette Midler, Donna Summer, Paul Newman, Whoopie Goldberg, Jo Ann Woodward, Alec Baldwin, Gene Wilder, Larry Coryell, Dave Liebman, Harold Danko, Ronnie Spector, James Naughton and Phoebe Snow, as well as arranging for Teo Maceo, producer for the late Miles Davis He appeared on television’s Celebrity Jeopardy and the Arsenio Hall Show and has performed at Manhattan’s Blue Note and the Montreaux Jazz Festival.