Chris Karan is a jazz percussionist, primarily a drummer, of Greek descent from Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. He played in Mike Nock

Mike Nock

Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...

's trio in Sydney in the early 1960s. After moving to London in 1962 Karan gained international renown as the drummer in the Dudley Moore Trio

Dudley Moore

Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...

; he toured and recorded with Moore for many years, including the Trio's numerous appearances on the TV series Not Only But Also and the soundtrack of the 1967 movie Bedazzled. Their professional association continued until Moore's last major public appearance at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in New York in 2001. Karan also worked with Roy Budd

Roy Budd

Roy Frederick Budd , was a British jazz musician and composer, known for his film scores.Born in Mitcham, Surrey, Budd became interested in music from an early age and had built up a vast musical repertoire by the age of eight...

 as a member of the Roy Budd Trio and performed on the Get Carter

Get Carter

Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother in a series of unrelenting and brutal killings played out against the grim background of derelict urban housing in the city of...

soundtrack.

Karan became a prolific and in-demand studio musician. He has worked with many famous names including Michel Legrand

Michel Legrand

Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...

, Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...

, Charles Aznavour

Charles Aznavour

Charles Aznavour, OC is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter, actor, public activist and diplomat. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the best-known singers in the world...

, Stanley Myers

Stanley Myers

Stanley Myers , was a prolific British film composer who scored over sixty films. Born in Birmingham, as a teenager Myers went to King Edward's School in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...

, Basil Kirchin

Basil Kirchin

Basil Kirchin was a British drummer and composer. His career stretched from playing drums in his father's big band at the age of 13, through scoring films, to experimenting with the manipulation of recorded sounds which has seen him cited as "the father of ambient music."-Emergence:Basil...

, Tony Hatch

Tony Hatch

Anthony Peter "Tony" Hatch is an English composer, songwriter, pianist, music arranger and producer.-Early life and early career:...

, Jackie Trent

Jackie Trent

Jackie Trent is an English singer, songwriter, and actress.-Career:Trent's first stage appearance was as a ten-year-old ingenue in the pantomime Babes In The Wood, but her primary interest was a career in pop music...

, Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

, Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith

Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....

, Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...

, Pat Williams, Andre Previn

André Previn

André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...

 , Richard Rodney Bennett

Richard Rodney Bennett

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...

, Barry Tuckwell

Barry Tuckwell

Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell AC, OBE , is an Australian horn player who has spent most of his professional life in the United Kingdom and the United States.- Early life and education :...

, Carl Davis

Carl Davis

Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....

, Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

, The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 and Roy Budd

Roy Budd

Roy Frederick Budd , was a British jazz musician and composer, known for his film scores.Born in Mitcham, Surrey, Budd became interested in music from an early age and had built up a vast musical repertoire by the age of eight...

. He has also toured with acts including John Dankworth

John Dankworth

Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE , known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist...

 and Cleo Laine

Cleo Laine

Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...

, The Bee Gees, Caterina Valente

Caterina Valente

Caterina Valente is a singer, dancer, and actress. She was born into an Italian artist family; her father Giuseppe was a well-known accordion player, her mother, Maria Valente, a musical clown...

, Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...

, Lulu

Lulu (singer)

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...

, and The Swingle Singers

The Swingle Singers

The Swingle Singers are a mostly a cappella vocal group formed in 1962 in Paris, France by Ward Swingle with Anne Germain, Jeanette Baucomont, Jean Cussac and others. Christiane Legrand, the sister of composer Michel Legrand, was the group's lead soprano through 1972. Until 2011 the group...

, and has performed with many of the biggest names in jazz. Karan was also a member of the Harry Stoneham group, which provided the musical backing for the Michael Parkinson

Michael Parkinson

Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...

 shows on BBC-TV.

In recent years he has worked with Katie Melua

Katie Melua

Ketevan "Katie" Melua is a British-Georgian singer, songwriter and musician. She moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then to England at fourteen. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of composer Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003...

, along with putting out CDs of his own. Other than drums he has an interest in various percussion styles of the world and plays the tabla

Tabla

The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...

 on some albums, having studied the instrument under the renowned Indian master Alla Rakha.

External links

• Chris Karan website
• [ Credits] at allmusic.com