Koran Daniels

Saxophonist, born and raised in New York. Koran mainly studied under Bill Ellington (nephew of Duke Ellington) and John Percel. Then he moved on to a brief partnership with the music major program at Cheyney State College in Pennsylvania. Realizing his foundation was solidly formed, Koran joined forces with friends he grew up with in the internationally known group Atlantic Starr to complete his professional status. While active with Atlantic Starr, Koran also recorded with The Temptations, Lonnie Liston Smith and Sun Ra as a section player as well as a soloist. Later as time passed he began to find his range of expression. To further its width a temporary break away from the group was needed to connect with Norman Connors' trumpeter Duke Jones (also an original member of the group before it became Atlantic Starr). Taking a group on tour to asia, Duke brought Koran on board for the trip to the east. As well as experiencing a new culture (Japan), Koran's prime directive was to learn and incorperate the Jazz form Be Bop into his R&B skills. He started to work with the Japanese blues artist Masaki Ueda. Being that Blues is so close to R&B, the professional relationship between Masaki and himself quickly materialized into a longtime friendship. Working together as much as their individual schedules will permit them to. Other Tokyo based artists he works with include Nanase Aikawa, Oguro Maki, and Lyrico. Experiencing the east with more vocabulary, he rejoins forces with his old time friends Atlantic Starr when they bring there tour to Asia. Furthermore, Korian has performed with Bobby Watson (original bassist from Rufus & Chaka Khan), Tommy Campbell, Paul Jackson (original bassist from Herbie Hancock's Headhunters) and others such as Jazz artists Stan Gilbert and Tom Pierson, pop artists such as Swing Out Sister, r&b artists Janet Kaye and Diana King, and reggae artists Sly & Robbie. Dorian hand picked a specially formed Smooth Jazz quartet to perform for the grand opening at the Bilboard Live in Tokyo and has performed at other venues such as the Osaka Blue Note and the Cotton Club in Tokyo.