producer, arranger, musician
“Good record production is a tricky thing...it requires not only the creative and the generating of ideas, but a facility for organization and the ability to inspire performances. Paul Bryan excels at all of these as well as bringing a dogged determination and dedication to making everything as musical and gorgeous as possible...an extremely rare combination.”
~Aimee Mann
“The staggering thing about Paul Bryan is the scope of experience he brings to a project. He’s a musician who knows his way around the studio and the stage, having worked with some of music’s most revered artists from Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Aimee Mann to Lucinda Williams. There’s an acute sensitivity in Paul’s playing and a knack for taking the song in as a whole. It's little wonder that his producer chops are so finely tuned. He gets inside the song and yet he’s always conscious of the big picture. In the tradition of George Martin, he’s also an incredible arranger, orchestrating strings and horns for a number of songs on my album Little Moon. I think one of the most important things about finding the right producer is that you know that they will honor the music, that they will challenge you to rise to your best and that they are willing to get their hands dirty and do what it takes to make the best recording possible. Paul Bryan is all that in spades.”
~ Grant Lee Phillips
For a more in depth look at any of the records, click on the Productions/Arranging tab at the top of the page above right and then select one of the artist thumbs.
Contact: Two Jakes Management E-Mail
Gigs
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What (certain) People Are Saying
MAGNET MAGAZINE names Top 20 Albums of 2009
no. 15 Grant Lee Phillip’s Little Moon
Grant-Lee Phillips’ most adventurous solo album yet never neglects the date who brought him to the dance: the big guitar throb of Grant Lee Buffalo. But Phillips has also added textured elements to his sound that constantly surprise. “It Ain’t The Same Old Cold War Harry” could be an update of the revered Fletcher Henderson/Duke Ellington big-band sound of the late ’30s. Phillips’ confident baritone is now right up front in a superlative recording by producer/bassist Paul Bryan that gives this music a transparency seldom heard in an era of too many tracks and not enough substance.
“The past 10 years has been me throwing in with a band. Arranging generally meant I’d play the song, everybody would try something, and Kennan [Gudjonsson] and I would cull from that. It’s worked well. Then Paul showed up at some point and proposed we try something more formal, more measured. Doubting we’d all find any real time obliged us to take a tiny opening last winter [2009]. We made a record from scratch over the course of a few fitful weeks, during which Paul would pore over the stuff I had written, putting hours in for regular involved discussions between transcribing and arranging. Near the end of that very short period he had accomplished ten masterful orchestrations, then promptly advanced to the positions of conductor and player. Somehow he made it look easy.”
“Paul is a born strategist, the picture of diligence, ingenuity and natural rapport, consistent with his uncommon ear for all things musical. Having worked with him across his range of expertise, I’m certain that our returns are ten times what they would have been without him.”
~ Nina Nastasia
