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Paul Horn

 
Artist: Paul Horn

Similar Artists:

Followers:

Stephen Coughlin, John Singer

Performed Songs By:

G.P. Da Palestrina, Alex North, David Mingyue Liang, Sékou Camara Cobra, Johann Sebastian Bach, André Geraissati, Steven Halpern, Orlandus Lassus

Worked With:

  • Born: March 17, 1930, New York, NY
  • Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: New Age
  • Instrument: Flute, Sax (Alto), Clarinet
  • Representative Albums: "Nomad," "The Peace Album," "Music"
  • Representative Songs: "Magnificat," "Earth Song," "Moon Dance"

Biography

When one evaluates Paul Horn's career, it is as if he were two people, pre- and post-1967. In his early days, Horn was an excellent cool-toned altoist and flutist, while later he became a new age flutist whose mood music is often best used as background music for meditation. Horn started on piano when he was four and switched to alto at the age of 12. After a stint with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra on tenor, Horn was Buddy Collette's replacement with the popular Chico Hamilton Quintet (1956-1958), playing alto, flute, and clarinet. He became a studio musician in Los Angeles, but also found time during 1957-1966 to record cool jazz albums for Dot (later reissued on Impulse), World Pacific, Hi Fi Jazz, Columbia, and RCA, and he participated in a memorable live session with Cal Tjader in 1959. In addition, in 1964, Horn recorded one of the first Jazz Masses, utilizing an orchestra arranged by Lalo Schifrin. In 1967, Paul Horn studied transcendental meditation in India and became a teacher. The following year, he recorded unaccompanied flute solos at the Taj Mahal (where he enjoyed interacting with the echoes), and would go on to record in the Great Pyramid, tour China (1979) and the Soviet Union, record using the sounds of killer whales as "accompaniment," and found his own label Golden Flute. Most of Paul Horn's work since the mid-'70s is focused on new age rather than jazz. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
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Wikipedia: Paul Horn (jazz musician)
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Paul Horn
Born March 17, 1930 (1930-03-17) (age 79)
Origin Flag of the United States USA
Genres Jazz
New Age
Occupations Flautist
Instruments Flute
Associated acts R. Carlos Nakai

Paul Horn (born March 17, 1930[1]) is an American jazz flutist, and pioneer of the New age musical genre.

Contents

Biography

He was born in New York City, and began playing the piano at the age of 4 and the saxophone when he was 12. He studied the flute in 1952 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and then earned a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

Moving to Los Angeles he played with Chico Hamilton's Quintet from 1956 to 1958 and recorded his debut album Something Blue in 1960. By now an established West Coast session player he played on the Duke Ellington Orchestra's Suite Thursday and worked with Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and others. In 1970, he moved with his second wife Tryntje to Victoria, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. He formed his own quintet and has recorded film scores for the National Film Board of Canada.

He is widely known for his innovations on both metal and traditional wood flutes, and has recorded some truly exotic albums. Perhaps most famous of these are his "Inside" recordings, which feature airy, echoing sounds created in places of spiritual importance. The series began with Horn sneaking a tape recorder into the Taj Mahal during a trip to India in 1968 and continued later with recordings inside Great Pyramid of Giza, and a return to the Taj Mahal in 1989. Horn has since made similar recordings in a cathedral, in the canyons of the Southwest with Native American flautist R. Carlos Nakai, and with orca whales.

In 1998 he was able to record within the walls of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. Horn was the first westerner to be granted permission to perform inside this massive structure considered the spiritual nexus of Tibetan Buddhism. Horn was to return to Tibet in 2003 to film on the holy Mount Kailash, where Horn would scatter the ashes of former travelling companion, Buddhist monk Lama Tenzin.

While he is undoubtedly a jazz musician, many of his works defy categorization. As well as the Inside series he has recorded other albums of jazz with musicians from a range of cultures and backgrounds including China and Africa.

He now lives in British Columbia with his third wife, singer and songwriter, Ann Mortifee.

Discography

  • Something Blue (1960)
  • The Jazz Years (1961)
  • Profile of a Jazz Musician (1961) with vibraphonist Emil Richards
  • The Sound of Paul Horn (1961) also with Richards, this album is now on the Profile of a Jazz Musician CD
  • Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts (1965) with Lalo Schifrin
  • In India & Kashmir (1968)
  • Inside, also known as Inside the Taj Mahal (1968)
  • Inside II, (1972)
  • Visions (1974)
  • The Altitude of the Sun (1975)
  • Special Edition (1975)
  • Nexus (1975)
  • Inside the Great Pyramid (1976)
  • Riviera Concert (1977)
  • Dream Machine (1978)
  • China (1981)
  • Inside the Cathedral (1983)
  • Traveler (1985)
  • Sketches: A Collection (1986)
  • The Peace Album (1988) - music for Christmas
  • Brazilian Images (1989)
  • Inside the Taj Mahal, Volume 2 (1989)
  • Nomad (1990)
  • Africa (1994)
  • Music (1997)
  • Inside Canyon de Chelly (1997) - with R. Carlos Nakai
  • Inside Monument Valley]] (1999) - with Nakai
  • Tibet: Journey to the Roof of the World (2000)
  • Imprompture (2001)
  • Journey Inside Tibet (2001)

References

External links


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Paul Horn (jazz musician)" Read more

 

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