A pioneer of 'World Jazz'
By Norm Dixon
The outstanding success of the recent WOMAD festival in Adelaide was just the latest manifestation of the growing popularity of what has become known as World Music.
In the early '80s, the World Music bug began to bite increasing numbers of musicians and audiences. They began to delve into to the sounds of an amazing array of the world's traditional and contemporary musical cultures and the exciting results that follow when these influence and fuse with each other.
Decades before this boom, Paul Horn pioneered the meeting of western contemporary jazz with the music of the rest of the world.
Horn, who will be playing in Sydney for one concert only, has more than 30 albums to his credit. Through the '50 and early '60s, Horn played saxophone and flute with the likes of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Buddy Rich. His early work concentrated on traditional "straight ahead" jazz but in the '60s moved increasingly towards the new modal "cool" jazz school. His flute became his favoured instrument.
His preference for the more ambient jazz style and a growing dissatisfaction with his hard-living, competitive jazz lifestyle led Horn to look for musical and personal alternatives. He explored a variety of Asian and Indian philosophies and beliefs.
These explorations led him to meet Ravi Shankar, the man primarily responsible for introducing Indian music to the west, and resulted in a visit to India in 1968 to record the famous Inside the Taj Mahal album. This was soon followed by other albums recorded inside the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
In 1983, Horn thumbed his nose at the US government's belligerent attitude to the Soviet Union and toured that country. Recent recordings include a blending of Horn's jazz flute with Chinese traditional instruments on Paul Horn — China, and with the music of Brazil on Alturo Do Sol.
"We have to live as one community on this planet and I've seen that music can bring us together, jazz music in particular", Horn said in an interview with Jazz Times. Asked if his music was "new age", he replied: "If by new age you mean music that's for meditation and relaxation, music that can heal you, then yes, I would call myself a new age musician. But to be healthy and relaxing, music does not need to be slow — it can be uptempo."
Paul Horn will performing at the Sydney Opera House on April 15 at 8 p.m. There is a concession price for students, pensioners and the unemployed.