Bassist, composer, producer, and educator Paul Beaudry is a San Francisco native. Since relocating to New York City in 2001, Beaudry has toured worldwide as a sideman with jazz artists Steve Turre, Wycliffe Gordon, Allan Harris, Charenee Wade, Dee Daniels, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cynthia Scott, Camille Thurman and Eric Lewis and also performed in concerts or on recordings with such jazz greats as Clark Terry, Grady Tate, Jimmy Cobb, Charlie Persip, Frank Wess, Cecil Bridgewater, Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, Roy Hargrove, Johnny O’Neal, Bruce Barth and Dave Valentine. He is the leader of the jazz quartet Paul Beaudry & Pathways which in 2010 released its self-titled debut on Dancing Spirit Records. The group was chosen for a 2010 Latin America tour and a 2011 South and Central Asia tour for the Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad program co-sponsored by Jazz At Lincoln Center and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. On tour they travel as U.S. cultural jazz ambassadors giving concerts and workshops to diverse audiences of all ages. His following recording, Paul Beaudry & Pathways – Americas, a jazz-inspired collection of folk and popular compositions from eight Latin American countries was released in 2012 on the Soundkeeper Recordings label. His third recording as a leader released in 2018 on Dancing Spirit Records, Paul Beaudry – New Tomorrows, is a collection of guitar-bass duets (featuring guitarist, Adam Rafferty) and includes several of his original compositions and arrangements with vocals, percussion and strings. Beaudry has toured in over 40 countries as both a leader and sideman and played on over 50 commercially released recordings including the Grammy Award winning “A Colbert Christmas” where he accompanied world-renown comedians, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.
Starting out his musical studies at age 5 on piano and age 8 on drums, Beaudry took up electric bass at age 18. Several years later he started playing acoustic bass and in 1999 finished as runner-up in the International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition. He has studied bass with John Clayton, Rufus Reid and Buster Williams and is influenced by their playing as well as by bass greats Ray Brown, Ron Carter and Paul Chambers.
As a composer, Beaudry has written large scale and short form pieces in both the classical and jazz idioms. His most ambitious work, a one hour, six-movement jazz suite for 12 instruments entitled “The Billy Childs Suite” debuted in 1998. He contributed three compositions on Paul Beaudry & Pathways – the modal blues opener “84-14,” the lyrical waltz-time number “My Friend Vicki” and the uptempo burner “Mr. Henderson,” his ode to the late, great tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. On the New Tomorrows recording Beaudry wrote four original compositions, notably the string-accompanied, lush, Brazilian adventurous “Lugano” and funk number “Little Julian”. He also wrote the string arrangement on the great standard “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life”.
Beaudry has also produced recordings and arranged numerous compositions for artists in the jazz, folk, world music and popular music genres, such as his producing, arranging, and performing for Buyu Ambroise’s Blues in Red Haitian jazz project and the debut recording of Christian folk singer-songwriter, Todd MacDonald.
As a committed educator, Beaudry has taught at the Teachers College at Columbia University, Hunter College, York College, Hunter College High School, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He has given master classes, clinics and workshops for students and young musicians worldwide and was a lecturer and clinician for the Colden Center Jazz Project (now the Kupferberg Center for the Arts) from 2001-2018 and was a bandleader for Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Jazz For Young People program from 2017-2020. During the pandemic years of 2020-2023 he taught at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn and restarted the Music program at The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria to educate the next generation about music. Beaudry holds a B.M. in Composition from Berklee College of Music, a M.A. in Jazz Performance from Queens College, an Advanced Certificate in Music Education from Brooklyn College, remains on faculty at the Teachers College at Columbia University and continues to be an in-demand performer and educator in New York and beyond.
