Award-winning songwriter Andrew Paul Neesley is an agile multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer who focuses, above all else, on making great music. He’s played and recorded with iconic artists in a diversity of genres, from Lady Gaga and the Roots to James Taylor and Chris Botti, but he’s known primarily for his artistry and dexterity as a trumpet player. He’s also a singer, pianist, violinist, guitarist, and producer, with a career history that includes performances at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Bowery Ballroom, and The Apollo Theater. Andrew’s remarkable range and flexibility is paired with a candor and vulnerability that makes his sound unique. After a successful career contributing to various GRAMMY-nominated albums and performing extensively with beloved groups (including NYC local favorite Jesus On The Mainline and Nees and Vos with Chris Vos of The Record Company), he’s launching his solo career as Andrew Paul, releasing a series of captivating, pared-down tracks that feel both raw and classic at the same time. The new project highlights Andrew’s ability to build emotionally stirring and distinct music with little beyond his voice and his guitar. “What I care most about is creating something great. We’re constantly trying to become better versions of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean the skin we’re in is any less perfect or less worthy. One of my goals with this project is to strike a balance between making something perfect and making something real.”

Born in Milwaukee, Andrew Paul was raised in a musical family: His father played tuba in a world-famous brass ensemble and his mother was a music teacher. Aware of both the highs and lows of musician life from a young age, Andrew took up the violin at age four, before discovering a deep love for the trumpet at Interlochen Arts Camp one summer. Among the Northern Michigan trees, mentored by some of the most brilliant musicians in the country, he developed an abiding interest in jazz, returning to Interlochen the next eight summers for intense musical study. At the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Andrew earned a degree in Trumpet Performance, touring, performing, writing, and arranging for the school’s GRAMMY-nominated jazz ensemble. “Eau Claire is where I really became a musician, playing gigs in the Twin Cities five nights a week. That environment really shaped me as a professional and as an artist.” In the early 2000s, Andrew moved to New York and earned a Jazz Composition degree at the Manhattan School of Music. As Jazz Coordinator for the school after graduation, he formed a tight-knit community with local musicians that led to many future collaborations.

For the next decade, Andrew collaborated with a wide spectrum of artists on unique, award-winning projects. He wrote and recorded two albums with drummer David Whitman: Oh, Clara!, which won the 2017 Independent Music Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, and Oh, Hugo! in 2021. He composed, arranged, and toured with the GRAMMY-nominated Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band. He arranged and produced Augie Haas’s Have We Met? and Dream A Little Dream for Playtime Music. And he led NYC-based jam ensemble Jesus On The Mainline, earning a cult following for their “wonderfully raucous, gospel-tinged noise” (according to John Schaefer of WNYC). The group gained popularity until members left to start their own projects. “Eventually you realize it’s complicated to take 20 people on the road.”

Andrew spent much of 2020’s pandemic honing his guitar skills and developing a new solo creative vision: to write and release a series of stripped-down, rock-and-roll songs as Andrew Paul. “I wanted to be able to perform and tour on my own, and quarantine offered a bittersweet chance to reinvest in myself.” Writing primarily on guitar for the first time, Andrew Paul songs are driven by dynamic melodic lines, vacillating in style between heartland soul, indie rock, and good, old-fashioned rock-and-roll, with a bit of groove (à la Budos Band) thrown in the mix. Led by his characteristically natural, earthy vocals, the lyrics tend to cover personal experience: love songs for his partner, stories about his family and friends. The result is a casual but compelling style that feels both idiosyncratic and profound. “It’s just me. It’s a little jammy, a little loud. It’s very much a portrait of where I am today as a musician and as a human...warts and all. There’s something really powerful about giving in to your passion, regardless of perfection: to celebrate not only the stuff you’re most proud of, but what moves you.”