Paul Franklin Berliner (born 1946) is an American ethnomusicologist, best known for specializing in

African music Given the vastness of the African continent, its music is diverse, with regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres amapiano, Jùjú, Fuji, Afrobeat, Highlife, Makossa, Kizomba, and others. The ...

as well as

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and other improvisational systems. He is best known for his popular ethnomusicology book on the

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

mbira Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

, ''The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe,'' for which he received the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

Deems Taylor Award. He also published ''Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation'' for which he received The Society of Ethnomusicology's Alan Merriam Prize for Outstanding Book in Musicology. Berliner received his Ph.D. from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

. Paul is the oldest of three and was born in Cambridge, MA to Joe and Ann Berliner. Berliner is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. He formerly taught at the School of Music of

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. He has recorded and produced albums of

Shona Shona often refers to: * Shona people, a Southern African people * Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today Shona may also refer to: * ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing * Shona (given name) * S ...

music, and has been recorded as a performer with the

Paul Winter Consort The Paul Winter Consort is an American musical group. Bassist Eliot Wadopian has been a member. Discography Films *''Canyon Consort'' (1985) References External linksLiving Music- Paul Winter's record label {{Authority control American j ...

. In 1979 he released an album of jazz played on the kudu horn, "The Sun Rises Late Here" (Flying Fish FF092). He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2004.

Publications

*''The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe.'' Berkeley : University of California Press, 1978. . *''Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. . *'' The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and Legacy'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. . *'' Mbira’s Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. .

References

1946 births Duke University faculty American ethnomusicologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Living people Northwestern University faculty Wesleyan University alumni {{US-ethnomusicologist-stub