Paul Franklin Berliner (born 1946)[1] is an American ethnomusicologist, best known for specializing in African music as well as jazz and other improvisational systems.
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.
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.
In 1979 he released an album of jazz played on the kudu horn, "The Sun Rises Late Here" (Flying Fish FF092).