Paul Brown

Guitarist Paul Brown has built a reputation as both a skilled producer and engineer through his distinctive instrumental sound that fuses jazz, R&B, and blues. His recording career includes several Top Ten entries on Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart, such as the 2004 release Up Front, White Sand from 2007, the 2009 Marc Antoine collaboration Foreign Xchange, and 2014’s Truth Be Told. In 2018 he reached the Top 20 on both the jazz and blues charts with Uptown Blues. His behind-the-scenes contributions earned a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album on Norman Brown’s Just Chillin’. Across several decades he has contributed to projects by George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kirk Whalum, and numerous additional artists.

Los Angeles-born to parents who performed with Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley, among others, Brown took up drums at age five and began playing guitar two years later. While still in high school he joined multiple bands and started working as an assistant engineer at a studio at age 15. After completing studies in music and math at the University of Oregon, he returned to Los Angeles, where he gained recognition producing, composing, and engineering for Luther Vandross, George Benson, Diana Ross, Boney James, and other R&B, pop, and contemporary jazz acts. In 2002 he shared the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album for his production and engineering on guitarist Norman Brown’s Just Chillin’.

Stepping forward as a front-line artist, Brown issued Up Front on GRP in 2004; the album reached number nine on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart and led to the following year’s The City. He next recorded White Sand and Foreign Xchange, the latter with Marc Antoine, for Concord, with both projects also landing in the jazz chart’s Top Ten. Under the Woodward Avenue Records banner he again entered the jazz Top Ten with 2012’s Funky Joint and 2014’s Truth Be Told. The 2016 album One Way Back adopted a blues-oriented approach and featured guest appearances by Darren Rahn, Chris Standring, Chuck Loeb, and others. Uptown Blues arrived in 2018, blending blues with horn-driven jazz and spotlighting Kenny Rankin and Jacqui Brown; it placed in the Top 20 on both the jazz and blues album charts. In 2021 he teamed with fellow guitarist Larry Carlton for the collaborative album Soul Searchin’.