Ellingsen was born in
Oslo and started his career playing in his older brother's band The Royal Rakes Jazzband (1980), collaborated within Christiania Jazzband (1981), and was a part of "Caledonia Jazzband" (1982–1998), with
The Real Thing (1995–1998 og 2010–2014), with Magnolia Jazzband (from 1999), and with his Danish wife and singer
Majken Christiansen (from 2001). Ellingsen lead his own band, The Sinatra Songbook (from 1999), along with jazz singer Ingar Kristiansen. He plays in these bands: Prima Vista Social Club, Rubber Soul Quartet and Gigaphonics. He has also recorded albums with
Paul Wagnberg Trio, Rune Nicolaysen Trio,
Anders Aarum Trio, Tor Einar Bekken, Sandvika Storband,
Ola Kvernberg, Harald Bergersen, Anne Marte Slinning and
Jan Werner. He has also collaborated with musicians like
Sigurd Køhn, Georg Reiss,
Norbert Susemihl,
Halvdan Sivertsen and
Øystein Sunde. Ellingsen holds a master's degree in
political science at the
University of Oslo (1994) and diploma degree in Music Management from
Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium in
Århus, Denmark (2012). He was the host of the TV program "Bandbox" at
NRK (1997), worked as a jazz writer and editor of the jazz magazine Jazznytt (2001–02). He also was a communications consultant in
Rikskonsertene in Oslo (1998–2001) and was employed as a concert producer the same place until 2016 where he facilitates concerts for children and young audiences. Ellingsen has published the norwegian language book Rosinen i pølsa (Kagge, 2005) with
Knut Lystad and Rune Semundseth. == Discography (in selection) ==