Viewing music through a wide-angle lens, Paul Hemmings blends elements of jazz, free improvisation, and world guitar styles to create a sound that has been called “bold, beautiful, and full of promise.” Based in New York City, Paul performs nationally and internationally as leader of The Paul Hemmings Trio, the dynamic guitar-bass-drum team he uses to interpret his own original compositions and renditions of modern standards. The group has released three albums on Leading Tone Records including, most recently, the critically acclaimed Letter From America with saxophonist John Tchicai.
For nearly a decade, Paul has performed at venues throughout New York City, from uptown concert halls to downtown clubs, and has also performed in England, Australia, and New Zealand. Honing his craft all the while, Paul developed the eclectic, genre-blending style that led All About Jazz to write, "Hemmings' mixture of cultures, influences, and genres, exploring the edges of harmony and rhythm, is remarkably fresh and a complete success."
In 2003 Paul recorded In & Out, his first release on Leading Tone. The album features the robust tenor saxophone of Eric Alexander and garnered strong reviews for its “superb renditions” of jazz standards and Hemmings originals. His second release in 2006 was a marked departure: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Live!) was recorded at a concert where Hemmings and his Trio performed a reinterpretation of the classic Beatles album that saw the guitarist dig deeper into his bag of effects pedals and samplers. The album has seen widespread airplay on public radio stations in the US and in countries as far and wide as Columbia, France, Holland, and Australia.
Born in Huntington Beach, California, to an English father and an Australian mother, Paul received a Mickey Mouse snare drum for his third birthday and immediately dedicated his life to making sounds. At age fourteen he began teaching himself to play the guitar by watching his father pick his own brand of English blues. In his early twenties, Paul moved north to the San Francisco Bay where he spent three years playing with avant-garde saxophone pioneer John Tchicai in his Sound and Poetry Source. Then, after a short stint sailing the high seas as the guitarist in a dysfunctional cruise ship orchestra, Paul packed up his guitar and moved to New York City where he received a scholarship to attend the New School University’s Jazz & Contemporary Music Program.
Currently, aside from leading his own trio, Paul performs in almost any other musical situation that comes his way, from session work to off-Broadway shows, while also writing music for film and television. Paul is an active member of the guitar faculty at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City; he has also taught clinics at the National Guitar Workshop.
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