Paul Horn

Early Years and Inside (1969)

Paul Horn was a member of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in 1956, and of the Chico Hamilton Quintet from 1956 to 1958. Through the 1960s, Paul Horn led a popular jazz group while working in Hollywood studios. In 1968, he recorded Inside, an album of improvised flute solos, on location at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, signaling his move in a more reflective direction that corresponded with his then-recent involvement with transcendental meditation. The album eventually sold more than 750,000 copies.

Career in Canada and Abroad

In 1970, Horn moved to Victoria, British Columbia, and in the years following performed and recorded both jazz and what would come to be called new age music, playing flutes in several registers, piccolo, and alto and soprano saxophones. He notably collaborated with the Toronto-based percussion ensemble Nexus in 1975 and recorded the album Paul Horn + Nexus, which came out the same year.

From his Canadian base, he continued to travel widely, delving enthusiastically into musical and cultural exotica. He visited China 1978-9 and 1982, performing there informally, and made three trips to the USSR 1983-8 - the first with what was effectively a US band that included his son Robin (drummer, b Los Angeles 17 May 1960, a pupil of Jim Blackley) and the third with Robin and three Vancouver musicians, Miles Black (keyboards), Rene Worst (bass) and Jim McGillveray (percussion). In addition to recording in the Taj Mahal, Horn made albums or parts thereof in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Eygpt (1976), the Temple of Heaven in Peking (1979), and the Kazamierus Cathedral in Vilnius, Lithuania (1983). He recorded again in the Taj Mahal in 1989, bringing full circle what he has called his “Inside” series.

In Canada, Horn had his own CTV series in 1973 and has prepared music for several NFB productions and other films. Several of his recordings in the 1970s were issued under the Mushroom label in Vancouver; others in the 1980s appeared under Horn's own Golden Flute label, established in 1982.

Horn's autobiography, Inside Paul Horn: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Universal Traveller, written with Lee Underwood, was published in San Francisco in 1990. His book contains a detailed list of all of Horn’s albums, including those he recorded as a sideman or partner of other musicians such as Duke Ellington, Chico Hamilton, Cal Tjader and Ravi Shankar.

Discography

• Inside (1969)
• July 9-10 (1973)
• Visions (1974)
• Special Edition (1975)
• Paul Horn + Nexus (1975)
• Altura Do Sol (1976)
• Inside the Great Pyramid (1976)
• Dream Machine (1978)
• Live at Palm Beach Casino, Cannes (1980)
• China (1982)
• Jupiter 8 (1982)
• Inside the Magic of Findhorn (1983)
• Inside Russia (1983)
• Live From Russia, With Love (1983)
• Paul Horn: Jazz Compositions (1983)
• Connections (1984)
• Paul Horn in Concert (1984)
• Sketches: A Collection (1986)
• Traveller (1986)
• The Peace Album (1988)
• Inside the Taj Mahal II (1989)
• Nomad: Selected Pieces 1976-1988 (1990)