Bob Northern

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Robert "Bob" Northern (born May 21, 1934 in North Carolina ; † May 31, 2020 ) was an American jazz musician ( French horn , flute , percussion , also composition ), who also published under the name Brother Ah .

Live and act

Northern grew up in the Bronx and studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Vienna Music Academy in the 1950s (he was stationed in Austria and Germany during his military service). At the end of the 1950s he returned to New York, where he initially worked in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra . As a session musician, he worked in the 1950s and 1960s with musicians such as Donald Byrd , John Coltrane ( Africa / Brass ), Gil Evans ( Great Jazz Standards ), Sun Ra , McCoy Tyner , Roland Kirk and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra . He also played with Don Cherry , Thelonious Monk , Freddie Hubbard , Miles Davis , Dizzy Gillespie , Eric Dolphy , Quincy Jones , Charlie Haden ( Liberation Music Orchestra , 1969) and John Lewis / Gary McFarland ( Essence ).

From 1963 to 1971, Northern lived in New York City and then spent the summer of 1972–77 to study in Africa ( Ghana , Kenya and Tanzania ). In the 1970s he recorded several albums under his own name (partly as Brother Ah ) such as Sound Awareness (1971, with Akua Dixon , Max Roach ), Move Ever Onward (1975) and Key to Nowhere (1983). In addition to the French horn, he also played percussion and flute in his later years.

From 1970 to 1974 Northern taught at Dartmouth College , from 1973 to 1982 at Brown University and then at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC Northern was also the founder of the World Music Ensemble , a formation that deals with African, Japanese and Spanish , East Indian, Native American and American musical traditions, and The Sounds of Awareness Ensemble , which dealt with natural sounds. Northern also appeared as Brother Ah on a weekly jazz program, The Jazz Collectors , at WPFW in Washington. In the field of jazz, he was involved in 64 recording sessions between 1959 and 1983, according to Tom Lord .

Discographic notes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Robert Northern, who, as 'Brother Ah,' became a synthesizer of sounds, dies at 86 (obituary). Washington Post , May 31, 2020, accessed June 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Profile at Mapleshade Records
  3. ^ Sea of ​​Sounds
  4. ^ Smithsonian Education
  5. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed June 2, 2020)
personal data
SURNAME Northern, Bob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Northern, Robert; Northern, Bob (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician (French horn, flute)
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2020