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Christy Doran

Christy Doran was born in Dublin, Ireland and has lived in Lucerne, Switzerland since his childhood. His father was an Irish ballad singer, providing Christy with his first exposure to music.

In the 1970's he was a founding member (along with Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber and Bobby Burri) of the seminal Swiss band "OM". Tours throughout Europe, radio/TV - appearances, workshops, music for ballet, theatre and film. Over the years, his career has included countless solo concerts, in which he regularly pushes to the limits the capabilities of a single guitar. He has played in duos with Marty Ehrlich, Harry Pepl, Fritz Hauser, Dave Doran, Dom Um Romao, John Wolf-Brennan, Robert Dick, Ray Anderson, among others. After playing in a trio with Jasper van't Hof, he went on to form the "Christy Doran's May 84" septet with Norma Winstone, Trilok Gurtu, Urs Leimgruber, Rosko Gee, Dom Um Romao and Dave Doran. He has been a member of the "Peter Warren Quartet" with Victor Lewis and John Surman, and "RED TWIST & TUNED ARROW" with Stephan Wittwer and Fredy Studer (1985 - 1987).

Christy Doran was also a co-founder of "Doran/Studer/Burri/Magnenat," (later "Doran/Studer/Gerber/Magnenat") and member of a quartet with Bobby Previte, Mark Helias and Gary Thomas. He played in a trio with Marilyn Mazur and Kim Clarke, as well as with Sibylle Pomorin's "Augeries of Speed" meeting Terry Jenour, Annie Whitehead, Kim Clarke, Herb Robertson, Kamal Sabir. As a member of Urs Leimgruber's "Ensemble Bleu" he also played with Francoise Kubler, Louis Sclavis, Hans Koch.

Other performances have included work with Carla Bley, Albert Mangelsdorff, Bob Stewart, Edvard Vesala, Charlie Mariano, Manfred Schoof, Ir'ne Schweizer, Aldo Romano, Pi'rre Favre, Peter Sch'rli, Glenn Ferris, Wolfgang Dauner, Fernando Sounders, Heiri K'nzig, Julio Barreto, Sonny Sharrock, Jim Meneses, Keven Bruce Harris, Martin Sch'tz, Daniel Mouton, Ronan Guilfoyle, Marc Peterson, Burhan Oecal, Werner L'di, Christoph Baumann, Lars Lindvall, Mark Halbheer, Urs Bl'chlinger, G'nter M'ller, Lauren Newton, Tim Berne, Jim Black, Gunther Schuller, Airto Moreira a.o. He has toured in Europe, North-Africa, India, the Caribic, Mexico, Bolivia, the U.S. and Canada.

1989 began a collaboration with trombonist Ray Anderson, which lead to the trio ANDERSON/BENNINK/DORAN (including drummer Han Bennink), which disbanded 1997.

1993 Christy Doran, together with Fredy Studer started the project "DORAN/STUDER/MINTON/BATES & ALI" play the music of JIMI HENDRIX". 1994 Django Bates was replaced by cellist Tom Cora. 1995/96 the band played in quartet with Phil Minton, Amin Ali, Fredy Studer and Christy Doran. Tours with this band throughout Europe, Scandinavia, , the US and Canada.

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15
Album Review

Christy Doran's May 95 Sextet: Same But Different

Read "Same But Different" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Curse or blessing? A festival handing a musician carte blanche for a one-off adventure sounds liberating, but the allure of artistic freedom can be tempered by pressure: what if the personalities do not gel? What if it bombs? Christy Doran, the Ireland-born Lucerne-based guitarist, has never been one to dodge a challenge. His entire career has been marked by adventure and innovation. From jazz-rock fusioneers OM in the early '70s to his later groups New Bag, Sound Fountain, ...

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Album Review

Christy Doran & Izumi Kimura: Glacial Voyage

Read "Glacial Voyage" reviewed by Ian Patterson


One was born in Ireland in the aftermath of WWII and grew up in Switzerland on a diet of Jimi Hendrix; the other was born in Japan a generation later and trained in classical music. But neither time nor musical upbringing can drive a wedge between veteran guitarist Christy Doran and pianist Izumi Kimura. Though each has worked in a wide range of different settings over the years--Doran in jazz-rock pioneers OM, Kimura with John Cage's music, for example--what draws ...

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Album Review

Morpheus Trance - Christy Doran: In Trance We Trust

Read "In Trance We Trust" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Renowned Switzerland-based guitarist Christy Doran's In Trance We Trust is a musical dreamscape you cannot quite pin down but may never want to escape. The album unfolds like a sonic labyrinth, twisting and turning through genres and moods with the cool confidence of a seasoned psychonaut. Doran, wielding his six-stringed wand, conjures textures that oscillate between otherworldly and hypnotically familiar. In the marketing one-sheet, Doran declares, “There is no boss"--a nod to the democratic ethos of the trio as they ...

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Liner Notes

Christy Doran: in The Corner Of The Eye

Read "Christy Doran: in The Corner Of The Eye" reviewed by Ian Patterson


For forty years, Irish-born, Lucerne-based guitarist Christy Doran has recorded prolifically for numerous labels. Inevitably perhaps, many of his earlier works are out of print, so it's cause for celebration that this release brings together the very best of Phoenix (hat Art, 1990) and What a Band (hat Art, 1992), two long-neglected yet essential Doran recordings. The majority of Doran's releases have been with bands, from the seventies jazz-rock/free jazz group OM to New Bag, his main working ...

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Album Review

Christy Doran & Stefan Banz: Aerosols

Read "Aerosols" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Aerosols is Irish-born, Lucerne-based guitarist Christy Doran's fifth solo album in a career which began in the early '70s, and his first since Acoustic Isles (Creative Works Records, 2006). That CD/DVD was an intermedia collaboration with visual artist Susanne Dubs. In similar vein, Aerosols sees Doran respond musically to five paintings by Swiss multi-media artist Stefan Banz. In turn, vla his own medium, Banz answers to five pieces of music composed by Doran. The paintings--with accompanying text--adorn the CD booklet, ...

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Album Review

Beady Beast: On The Go

Read "On The Go" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Guitarists Christy Doran and Franz Hellmüller, the duo known as Beady Beast, were once teacher and student. That was in the early 2000s, when Hellmüller studied with Doran at Lucerne's Musikhokschule. Since graduating summa cum laude in 2003, Hellmüller has established a reputation as an original electric guitarist, usually playing in the company of Patrick Sommer and Martin Perret, or with Luca Sisera and Tony Renold. Longer of tooth, Doran has blazed a singular trail since the early '70s with ...

5
Album Review

OM: It's About Time

Read "It's About Time" reviewed by Ian Patterson


In 1982, after five albums in ten years, Swiss free-jazz quartet OM called it a day—its four members, Christy Doran, Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber and Bobby Burri going their separate ways. A supposed one-off reunion in 2007 to open an exhibition on the youth movement of the 1960s and 1970s led to a successful series of festivals appearances on home turf. Those concerts resulted in the live album Willisau (Intakt Records, 2010), a return to OM's improvisational heartland, and signalled ...

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