Born: April 14, 1963 Primary Instrument: Guitar
A native of New York City, Nick Moran began playing trumpet at age ten, switching over to the guitar at thirteen. His early musical influences were the British rock guitarists Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Frampton. Moran played in several rock groups throughout high school and college, and also studied classical guitar. He first discovered the music of George Benson at age fifteen. Other musical influences include Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Nick’s study of jazz began in 1991 with arranging and ear training classes at the Fachbereich Musik in Mainz, Germany, where he also played guitar and trumpet in the university big band. He returned to New York in 1998 and began formal jazz studies in early 1999, receiving his B.F.A. in Jazz Performance from the City College of New York in 2001. He did rhythm section studies for two years with bassist Ron Carter and studied composition with pianist/arranger Mike Holober.
Moran leads two bands and is also active as a solo performer on seven-string guitar. He performs throughout the New York City area and has played in venues such as Kavehaz, the Brooklyn Museum, the WIlliamsburg Music Center and the Garage. Musicians he has played with include the Ray Santos Orchestra, trumpeter Shunzo Ohno, bassists Tom Hubbard and Jennifer Vincent, guitarists Adam Rafferty, Rick Stone, Nick Russo and Russ Spiegel, pianists Cliff Korman and Burt Eckoff.
Nick is also a recording engineer and producer. He recently completed work on Coba’s “Cancion Mandala,” the second cd by multi-instrumentalist and composer Sebastian Cruz which released in October 2006 on Chonta Records. Nick lives with his family in Brooklyn, N.Y.
