ABOUT

I make records and take photographs. I also worked in television, film, and theater for twenty years. If you’re here to book audio services, please visit www.kahanjamesaudio.com.

As a teenager I was mentored at Sunrise Sound Studios in fundamentals of 24-track tape recording, audio engineering, analog synthesizer programming, electronic music production, arranging, and songwriting.

I have a bachelor’s degree in dramatic art from UC Berkeley, where I also studied linguistics and philosophy with George Lakoff, John McWhorter, and John Searle.

I’ve produced music internationally for solo artists, bands, composers, filmmakers, theater producers, designers, visual artists, and activists. My productions have been licensed to commercial media, independent films, and featured programming for Twentieth Century Fox Film, MTV, Showtime, and Fox Television, including Knight and Day starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.

I appeared in recurring, lead, and featured roles for HBO, Showtime, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, The CW, The WB, and USA, including performances on Billions, Unforgettable, Gossip Girl, White Collar, Royal Pains, Running Wilde, Damages, Standoff, Law & Order: Trial By Jury, Law & Order, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, and in films including Hitch starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes, and Every Day starring Liev Schreiber and Carla Gugino. I also narrated a two-hour special edition of National Geographic's nature documentary Wild France.

I was featured nationally in commercials for IKEA, Microsoft, American Express, Capital One, Vonage, Chef Boyardee, Volkswagen, Crest, Charles Schwab, Samsung, Sherwin-Williams, Marie Callender's, Hands High Sports Apparel, and AT&T, and in Germany for Bitburger Beer. I recorded voiceovers for American Express, Red Lobster, Chase Ink, and NY Lotto.

In 2003 under the mentorship of Tony Award-winning director Anthony Page, I assistant-directed the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof starring Ashley Judd, Ned Beatty, Jason Patric, and Margot Martindale.

In 2001 my Super 16mm film Forever, which I co-wrote, co-directed, starred in, and created the soundtrack for, won “Best Dramatic Feature” at Dallas’ Deep Ellum Film Festival.

Thanks to the support of celebrated American playwright Edward Albee, my original two-act play The Standing Wave was invited to Stages Repertory Theater’s Annual Festival of New Plays in 2000, where it won “Second Place” and went on to receive a commercial production in the Houston theater community.

In 2022 I consulted for Quentin Tarantino’s renovation of the historic Vista Theater in Los Feliz, providing logistical and creative support to the production team.

When I’m not working, I like to spend time in the wilderness.

DISCOGRAPHY