Kip Hanrahan
American jazz music impresario, record producer and percussionist
About Kip Hanrahan
Born 1954. Kip Hanrahan is an American jazz musician, record producer, percussionist, composer and musician.
Kip Hanrahan (born December 9, 1954) is an American jazz music impresario, record producer and percussionist.
Personal life Hanrahan was born in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in the Bronx to an Irish-Jewish family. His father left when he was 6 months old, leaving his mother and grandfather to raise him. He has described his grandfather as "this cynical Russian communist" whose approval of rebellion against authority he cites as among his early musical influences.
While attending Cooper Union on a scholarship, he studied with visual-conceptual artist Hans Haacke. He has cited Haacke as his strongest influence. As part of his university study, he traveled to North Africa, and lived in India for a year.
Career He has an unusual role in the albums released under his name, one which he has analogized to that of a film director. He assembles players and materials, combining modern/avant-garde/free jazz figures like David Murray, Don Pullen and Steve Swallow, Latin jazz players such as Milton Cardona and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, and occasionally rock musicians like Sting, Grayson Hugh, Fernando Saunders, and Jack Bruce.
He produced a number of significant recordings by the nuevo tango master Astor Piazzolla in the last decade of Piazzolla's life, The Conjure projects were not the only poetry-based albums. Darn It, a double CD released in 1993, gathered music to the poems of Paul Haines that Hanrahan had compiled over the past seven years since 1986, with contributions by a wide-ranging group of session musicians like Derek Bailey singing, duos by Evan Parker with Robert Wyatt and Carmen Lundy, Alex Chilton with a piano trio around Wayne Horvitz, Mary Margaret O'Hara with Gary Lucas and Steve Swallow, and John Oswald playing alto saxophone alongside fellow Canadian and multimedia artist Michael Snow, who also provided the cover and booklet design.
Discography All albums were released on Hanrahan's American Clavé label.
Coup de Tête (1981) Desire Develops an Edge (1983) Vertical's Currency (1985) A Few Short Notes for the End Run (EP, 1986) Tango: Zero Hour (1986) Days and Nights of Blue Luck Inverted (1987) Tenderness (1990) Exotica (1993) Paul Haines – Darn It! (1993) All Roads Are Made of the Flesh (live and studio recordings, 1995) A Thousand Nights and a Night (1 - Red Nights) (1996) A Thousand Nights and a Night (Shadow Nights 1) (1998) A Thousand Nights and a Night (Shadow Nights 2) (1999) Drawn from Memory (Greatest Hits or Whatever) (Compilation, 2001) Original Music from the Soundtrack to Piñero (2002) Beautiful Scars (2007) At Home in Anger (2011) Crescent Moon Waning (2017)
With Conjure Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed (1985) Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon (1988) Bad Mouth (2006)
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Important facts
People in Kip Hanrahan's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
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Frequently asked questions
Who is Kip Hanrahan?
American jazz music impresario, record producer and percussionist
When was Kip Hanrahan born?
Kip Hanrahan was born on 9 December 1954 in The Bronx.
What is Kip Hanrahan's occupation?
Kip Hanrahan is a jazz musician, record producer, percussionist, composer and musician.
What nationality is Kip Hanrahan?
Kip Hanrahan is American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Kip Hanrahan. https://biography.guide/kip-hanrahan/
MLA: "Kip Hanrahan." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/kip-hanrahan/.
Chicago: "Kip Hanrahan." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/kip-hanrahan/.
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