Paul Sullivan

Trained initially in Boston, his birthplace, Paul Sullivan pursued studies at Phillips Exeter Academy before earning his B.A. from Yale University in 1977. After completing his degree, he launched a freelance career and relocated to New York in hopes of building a name for himself as a composer. In 1988 he settled in Maine, where he concentrated on issuing his own recordings—works shaped by years spent performing in the city’s jazz clubs and off-Broadway theaters. Those independent releases earned him multiple awards, and by the late ’90s his attention had turned to interpreting favorite standards from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.