Paul Simon is an American singer-songwriter who rose to fame as half of Simon & Garfunkel before building one of pop music's most acclaimed solo careers, running from Paul Simon (1972) through Graceland (1986) and beyond. He has no jazz-idiom catalog of his own and does not present himself as a jazz musician. What earns him a place in this catalog is narrower and unusually well documented: across five solo albums between 1975 and 1990, he built his studio and touring bands around genuine, working jazz musicians, several of them the era's most prominent names on their instruments, and gave them credited solos and arranging roles rather than using them as anonymous backing players. This profile covers only that thread; the Simon & Garfunkel catalog, the bulk of his songwriting career, and his non-jazz sidemen are deliberately left out.

The clearest case is Still Crazy After All These Years (1975, Columbia), produced by Simon and Phil Ramone and cut mostly at A&R Recording in New York, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1976. Its release-level personnel credits, confirmed via Discogs, read like a jazz session log: tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker takes the solo on the title track, alto saxophonist Phil Woods plays the widely cited solo on "Have a Good Time," and "Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy" stacks Brecker, David Sanborn, and Eddie Daniels together on saxophones. Elsewhere on the album, drummer Grady Tate and pianist Richard Tee anchor "Gone at Last," harmonica player Toots Thielemans plays on "Night Game," and pianist and arranger Bob James contributes electric piano, string and horn arrangements across several tracks. Drummer Steve Gadd, who became one of Simon's most consistent collaborators, also appears throughout.

Simon's next studio album, One-Trick Pony (1980, Warner Bros.), grew out of the film of the same name and drew its core band almost entirely from New York's jazz-and-session world: Gadd on drums, Richard Tee on piano, guitarist Eric Gale, and bassist Tony Levin play on nearly every track, pianist and arranger Dave Grusin scored the horns on "Late in the Evening," pianist Don Grolnick plays synthesizer on "That's Why God Made the Movies," bassist Anthony Jackson plays "Oh, Marion," and trumpeter Jon Faddis takes a flugelhorn solo on that same track. Hearts and Bones (1983, Warner Bros.) continued the pattern throughout, not just on its title track: vibraphonist and marimba player Mike Mainieri and percussionist Airto Moreira join Gadd and Tee on "Hearts and Bones" itself, guitarist Al Di Meola takes a credited solo on "Allergies," and bassist Marcus Miller plays on "Think Too Much (b)" and "Train in the Distance" (the latter also featuring Mainieri on vibraphone).

Graceland (1986, Warner Bros.), Simon's best-known and most honored album, is built primarily around South African musicians, but its most famous American contribution is a jazz horn section in all but name. The brass and reeds on "You Can Call Me Al" are trumpeters Randy Brecker, Jon Faddis, Lew Soloff, and Alan Rubin, trombonists Dave Bargeron and Kim Allan Cissel, and baritone/bass saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, all veteran jazz players individually credited on the release. "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" adds saxophonists Alex Foster and Lenny Pickett and trumpeter Earl Gardner, while Ralph MacDonald plays percussion on multiple tracks. The follow-up, The Rhythm of the Saints (1990, Warner Bros.), carries the connection further: Michael Brecker plays Akai EWI (electronic wind instrument) across the album, Randy Brecker plays trumpet on "Further to Fly" and "She Moves On," Gadd returns on drums, trombonist Dave Bargeron plays euphonium on "Further to Fly," and that same track features a flugelhorn contribution from South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

Simon's own musical language is that of a folk-rock and pop songwriter, not a jazz improviser, but his studio records show a consistent, deliberate habit of writing space for real jazz soloists inside pop arrangements rather than using session players purely as anonymous accompanists. Working repeatedly with producer/engineer Phil Ramone, himself a figure with deep jazz-world ties, Simon built arrangements around named, credited jazz voices: Michael Brecker's tenor solo on "Still Crazy After All These Years" and Phil Woods's alto solo on "Have a Good Time" are both frequently singled out by critics as highlights of the 1975 album independent of Simon's own vocal or lyrical contribution. The same pattern, a pop bandleader assembling a de facto jazz-fusion rhythm section and horn section for his own sessions, repeats across One-Trick Pony, Hearts and Bones, Graceland, and The Rhythm of the Saints.