Paul McCandless
Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. (born March 24, 1947)[1] is an American multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the American jazz group Oregon.[2] He is one of the few jazz oboists. He also plays bass clarinet, English horn, flute, penny whistle, tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone, and soprano saxophone.[3]
Paul McCandless
Biography[edit]
Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, United States,[1] into a musical family. His father (who was also an oboe and English horn player) taught him clarinet, his mother piano,[4] and he attended the Manhattan School of Music. In 1971 he auditioned with the New York Philharmonic playing English horn and was a finalist.[5]
McCandless has released a series of records of his own compositions with bands he led, including All the Mornings Bring (Elektra/Asylum, 1979), Navigator (Landslide, 1981), Heresay (Windham Hill, 1988), Premonition (Windham Hill, 1992). With Oregon, he has recorded over twenty albums, as well as several albums with Paul Winter.[6]
In 1996, McCandless won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He also won Grammys in 2007 and 2011 with the Paul Winter Consort for Best New Age Album and in 1993 for Al Jarreau's album Heaven and Earth.[7] His performance on Oregon's album 1000 Kilometers was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo in 2009. He won the Down Beat Critics' Poll for Best Established Combo, the Deutscher Schallplatten Preis for his album Ectopia, and the Arbeitskreis Jazz im Bundesverband der Phonographishen Wirtschaft Gold Record Award.[8]
In 1985, McCandless toured Europe with bassist Barre Phillips and German clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann. He has been a guest musician with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, appearing on the 1999 album Greatest Hits of the 20th Century and the 2002 album Live at the Quick, and has toured with tabla musician Sandip Burman. He was a guest of Leftover Salmon and The String Cheese Incident in the late 1990s. He has appeared on stage in duets with pianist Art Lande, with whom he recorded the album Skylight. Since 2013 he has been playing regularly in Europe with the Samo Šalamon Bassless Trio.[5]
McCandless is active in classical music. As an orchestral soloist, he has performed with the Camerata Chamber Orchestra of Mexico City, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.[5] Three of Paul's orchestral scores are heard on the album Oregon in Moscow. "Round Robin", the opening track, received 2001 Grammy nominations for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement.[8]
In 2014, McCandless began performing with Charged Particles a jazz trio based in San Francisco,[3] including opening the 2015 San Luis Obispo Jazz Festival with them[9] and headlining at the Stanford Jazz Festival.[10] The quartet has appeared at Birdland (in New York City), Blues Alley (in Washington, D.C.), Yoshi's Jazz Club, The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, The Dakota Jazz Club,[11] and other venues throughout the U.S.[12] In 2017, McCandless and Charged Particles did a ten-day tour of Indonesia, performing at the Motion Blue Jazz Club (Jakarta),[13] Jazz Centrum (Surabaya),[14] and the Jazz Gunung Bromo Festival (on Mount Bromo)[15]
Reception[edit]
The London Telegraph called McCandless's contribution to The Great Jubilee Concert "remarkable".[16] Said Jazz Journal, "Paul McCandless delivered terrific, beautifully modulated solos on both oboe and soprano."[17]
The Washington Post called McCandless a "stellar player" who plays "sparkling harmonic cascades."[18]