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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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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 ...

8
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, ...

7
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 ...

8
Album Review

Christy Doran's Sound Fountain: Lift The Bar

Read "Lift The Bar" reviewed by Ian Patterson


With four records in as many years Christy Doran's Sound Fountain seems in 2020 to have eclipsed New Bag as the guitarist's going concern. However, just because New Bag hasn't recorded since Elsewhere (Double Moon, 2015) doesn't mean that the band, founded in 1997, won't still make a comeback. After all, who could have foreseen the 2016 return to the road of OM, thirty-four years after Doran, Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber and Bobby Burri called time on the seminal Swiss ...

6
Album Review

Christy Doran's Sound Fountain: For The Kick Of It

Read "For The Kick Of It" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Released shortly before turning seventy, Christy Doran's third outing with Sound Fountain finds the Irish-born, Lucerne-based guitarist playing as well as at any time during his fifty-year career. It marks a blistering return for Doran to electric trio terrain, following the experimentation of 144 Strings for a Broken Chord (Between the Lines, 2018)—compositions for twenty electric guitars, four basses and drums—and the uncategorizable, and sonically challenging, Âme Sèche (Leo Records, 2018). The template here is broadly the same as that ...

66
Album Review

Walter Fähndrich - Christy Doran - Remo Schnyder - Samuel Wettstein: Âme Sèche

Read "Âme Sèche" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


The literal translation of the album title from French to English looks to be 'soul dryer,' but in reality it could imply something else. Regardless, this international quartet abides by a surfeit of unorthodoxies. And while guitar hero Christy Doran is perhaps well-known to the global avant-jazz, improvisation and jazz fusion audience, the other artists' musical appetites span noise music, classical, jazz, improvisation and a host of cross-bred musical idioms. Nonetheless, the musicians' biographies are well-beyond the scope of this ...

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Performance / Tour

Trio Edition Featuring Christy Doran (g), Arild Andersen (b), Marc Halbheer (d)

Trio Edition Featuring Christy Doran (g), Arild Andersen (b), Marc Halbheer (d)

Source: Marc Halbheer

Driving rhythms, intricate harmonic decoration, thrusting melodic lines and stellar musicianship are the keywords to describe the sound of Trio Edition. Christy Doran: A focal point in contemporary guitar playing. Arild Andersen: A leading figure in European jazz. Marc Halbheer: A navigator beyond borders in the world of rhythm. On Tour in Spain April 2014 2.4. La Coruña / Filloa Jazz Club 3.4. Toledo / Circulo de Arte 4.4. Salamanca / Plan ...

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Recording

Ray Anderson, Han Bennink & Christy Doran: ABD on hatOLOGY

Ray Anderson, Han Bennink & Christy Doran: ABD on hatOLOGY

Source: Werner Uehlinger

Listening to Anderson's four compositions, Doran's piece, four free improvisations, and an Ellington tune, from the two sessions strike me as collages of a sort, bringing together very different aesthetics, directions, and materials, for a direct confrontation. Not a confrontational confrontation, mind you. A very amenable comparing, contrasting, and combining of sensibilities, the very thing that makes creative music tick. —John Corbett Originally released as Azurety and Cheer Up. Recorded in 1994-1995. Personnel: Ray Andeerson (trombone, tuba); Han Bennink (drums); ...

"Doran is always marvelous & challenging..." (DMGallery, New York )

“...Doran ist einer der besten Leute in der europäischen Szene...” (“Sounds” / BRD)

“Un géant de la guitare aventurière” (“24 HEURES” / CH)

“...Doran’s guitarplaying is incredible, showing how great a master of the instrument he is...” (“The Sunday Observer”, Bombay, India)

“...Sicher, es mag Schnellere geben als Doran, virtuosere Spezialisten in einem Stil oder Leute mit exotischerer Spieltechnik, aber was Frische, Originalität, Einfallsreichtum und klangliche Vielfalt angeht, können ihm nicht viele das Wasser reichen...” (“Fachblatt”/ BRD)

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

On The Go

Between the Lines
2021

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Aerosols

Between the Lines
2021

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It's About Time

Intakt Records
2020

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For The Kick Of It

Between the Lines
2019

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Lift The Bar

Between the Lines
2019

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144 Strings For A...

Between the Lines
2018

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