8 Tracks: Absolute Essentials with Greg Paulus

This is my favorite Oscar record. You can literally hear the joy and relaxation in their playing. Ray Brown at his finest, Ed Thigpen holding it down perfectly. A classic Dizzy Gillespie tune, swinging hard, i play this every day at my house, i found the vinyl a while back, surprisingly missed my radar when I was a kid and it’s just the best. It’s great for cozying up to a perfect fire, with a nice friend like Bill Patrick!

The best of Marvin, when i heard a Waajeed edit of this in high school i flipped out, must have been on a Bling47.com mix CD, Thanks Jeedo!! Then I found the vinyl years later, I play this at the house every day! Pure emotion, fantastic chordal movement, epic vocal melody. My wife will catch me singing along to this at max volume, alone in the house quite often haha! pure class this one!

Tabu Records for the win as always! Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced, i’m from Minnesota so i’m biased but this is the number one sound. special version where they really go all out, absolutely love it, i have four copies currently and i will buy any that i see. My dad was friends with Jimmy Jam when they were on the ASCAP board back in the day and he used to send us the best holiday cards every year, what an honor!!! and low and behold many years later i’m jamming to his records in my apartment!

This is a record that makes me feel right at home, Gadi from Wolf + Lamb gave this to me, we used to rinse it in the olden days and I still play it constantly at the house and out at shows. Totally changed my perception of how to compose, so organic, feels like you’re in the room with them. I even made a cover of it because I just couldn’t get it out of my head 10 years later. Thanks Theo and thanks Gadi!

This record never leaves my bag. We were playing a No Regular Play show in London for the legendary Derren Smart and he brought me up to his office after the set, sat down at his desk with a painting of cowboys riding on horseback behind him and he says “i have record you have to hear baby!” he put this on and my life changed! just brilliant, attitude, groove, perfection. We cover this every year with my band at the Houghton festival in honor of Derren. Even got to play it for his mother one year!

We had the best house above ye ol Marcy Hotel and one day i came home and our dear friend Guada was dropping this record on our decks and my partner from No Regular Play Nick DeBruyn and I looked at eachother like oh my god this is the dopest shit ever! Guada throwing it down with pure class, we were like ok we have to make music like this! To now be able to be friends and make music with Jamie is the gift of a lifetime! This record has been on constant repeat since then and it gets even more relevant every day! Jamie for Prez!!!!!

One of my favorite NRP records, this came out on Justin Miller’s awesome HAKT label, we really put our all into this and enlisted our old roommate and very close friend, the illustrious violist Kenny Wang to play on it. it’s just classic NRP, low slung groove, Afro – Cuban vibes, just what we always want to listen to. I think it was highly inspired by Cachaito’s album, (of Buena Vista Social Club fame). I love how it develops and then just leaves you in tears at the end, thank you Kenny!!

Speaking of Afro – Cuban vibes, this album “Crisol” from the trumpet master Roy Hargrove is so beautiful and cool and mysterious. I love this particular track Nusia’s Poem, written by the legendary Gary Bartz, it just builds and builds with haunting melodies. I looked up to Roy so much, how to play, how to dress, how to act on stage, when to play and when not to! followed him to every jam session in NYC, he was so generous. When he would come to Minnesota, we’d hop in my car after his gigs at the Dakota and just drive around, listen to music and find the next spot to play. His influence on music as a whole and trumpet playing in general is just iconic. We miss you Roy!