Paul Berliner (ethnomusicologist)

Paul Franklin Berlin ( born 1946 ) is an American ethnomusicologist and musician ( mbira, trumpet, percussion, Kuduhorn ).

Berlin already employed in the mid- 1960s with African music and picked up in Africa; some of his transcriptions of traditional Western and South African compositions have been popularized by Paul Winter since the early 1970s. The first field recordings from Zimbabwe, he published in 1973; this album The Soul of Mbira was nominated for a Grammy. In 1978 he received his doctorate at Wesleyan University on the role of music in the traditions of the Shona. The resulting book was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award with their. In 1979 he completed at Flying Fish Records an album before, the African song material with the playing styles of jazz linked ( The Sun Rises Late Here) and was nominated for a Grammy. His 1994 book, published on the interactions in jazz has also won several awards.

Berliner, who taught at Northwestern University, is Professor of Ethnomusicology at Duke University. Since 2004 he is member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also participated as a musician with the Paul Winter Consort: up and with Claudia Schmidt ( Common Ground, Earth Voices of a Planet).

Writings (selection )

• The Poetic Song Texts Accompanying the Mbira Dzavadzimu. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol 20, No. 3, September 1976, pp. 451-482
• The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe. The University of Chicago Press, 1978
• Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. The University of Chicago Press, 1994.