For more than half a century, multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless has been a singular force in creative music, thrilling audiences with a career that bridges jazz, classical, and global traditions. His journey began in the late 1960s with saxophonist and world music pioneer Paul Winter in the groundbreaking Winter Consort, followed in the early 1970s by the formation of the influential chamber jazz quartet Oregon. By the early 1980s, McCandless was also a key voice in Jaco Pastorius’ legendary Word of Mouth big band, further cementing his place in modern jazz history.
McCandless emerged as a bandleader in 1979 with All the Mornings Bring on Elektra, then joined forces with pianist Art Lande and vibraphonist Dave Samuels for the striking ECM release Skylight in 1981. That same year he released Navigator on the Landslide label, continuing to expand his compositional voice. Two major projects followed on Windham Hill: Hearsay (1988) and Premonition (1992), the latter produced by bassist Steve Rodby and featuring an extraordinary lineup of Lyle Mays on piano, Fred Simon on keyboards, and Mark Walker on drums.
That ensemble took to the stage for nine concerts in the summer of 1992, beginning on July 4 at the Montreal Jazz Festival and continuing with a three-night stand from August 21 to 23 at Kimball’s East in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of those performances was quietly captured on a DAT cassette and placed into McCandless’ private archive, where it remained unheard for decades. The tape resurfaced only recently, discovered by co-producer Jon Krosnick while helping McCandless organize material for his website. As Krosnick recalls, after finding a poorly labeled cassette tucked away in a small storage room, he took it home, pressed play, and instantly knew its importance. “We have to release this,” he thought.
Now, thanks to the meticulous sound engineering of Steve Rodby and Dan Feiszli—employing state-of-the-art, AI-assisted mixing technology—that long-forgotten recording has been transformed into Live at Kimball’s East, a professional and vivid document of a band at its creative peak. The release captures the group’s extraordinary onstage chemistry and restores a moment in time that might otherwise have been lost.
For Rodby, the project is deeply personal. Revisiting the music also means revisiting memories, especially of pianist Lyle Mays, whose passing in 2020 left a profound void in the jazz world. A founding member of the Pat Metheny Group and Metheny’s longtime songwriting partner, Mays shared a special musical bond with McCandless—one already evident on Premonition and even more striking on these live performances. On Live at Kimball’s East, that connection unfolds with added intensity and emotional depth, making the release both a celebration and a poignant tribute.
Live at Kimball’s East stands as a rare and powerful addition to Paul McCandless’ remarkable legacy: a rediscovered chapter that reminds us how enduring, and how alive, this music continues to be.
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