Paul Berliner is an important twentieth century ethnomusicologist, best known for specializing in African Music as well as Jazz and other improvisational systems. He is best known for his popular ethnomusicology book on the Zimbabwean mbira, The Soul of Mbira: music and traditions of the Shona people of Zimbabwe, for which he received the ASCAP 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. Dr. Berliner received his Ph.D. from Wesleyan. Berliner is a Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Music Department at the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, as well as the School of Music of Northwestern University. He has recorded and produced albums of Shona mbira music, and has been recorded as a performer with the Paul Winter Consort.
Publications
- Berliner, Paul. (1978). The Soul of Mbira: music and traditions of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- Berliner, Paul. (1994). Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226043819.
