Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. (born March 24, 1947 in Indiana, Pennsylvania) is an American multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the American jazz group Oregon. He is one of few expert jazz oboists. He also plays bass clarinet, English horn, and soprano saxophone.

McCandless has released a series of records of his own compositions with bands he led, including All the Mornings Bring (Elektra/Asylum, 1978), Heresay (Windham Hill, 1988), Navigator(Landslide, 1981), and Premonition (Windham Hill, 1992). With Oregon, he has recorded over twenty albums albums with Paul Winter.

In 1996, McCandless won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He also won Grammys in 2007 and 2011 with the Paul Winter Consort for Best New Age Album and in 1993 for Al Jarreau‘s album Heaven and Earth. His performance on Oregon’s album 1000 Kilometers was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo in 2009. He won the Down Beat Critics’ Poll for Best Established Combo, the Deutscher Schallplatten Preis for his album Ectopia, and the Arbeitskreis Jazz im Bundesverband der Phonographishen Wirtschaft Gold Record Award.