Born in 1934 in
Kinston, North Carolina and raised in
The Bronx, Northern studied at the
Manhattan School of Music He also worked with
Don Cherry,
Thelonious Monk, In the 1970s he released several albums as a bandleader; his 1974 release
Sound Awareness featured
Max Roach and
M'Boom. These albums were reissued on CD on the Ikef Records label in the 2000s. In addition to horn playing, Northern also branched into percussion and flute performance later in his career. He taught at
Dartmouth College from 1970 to 1973,
Brown University from 1973 to 1982 and then at the
Levine School of Music in
Washington, D.C. from 1982. Northern, as Brother Ah, hosted a weekly jazz oriented radio program, The Jazz Collectors, on station
WPFW in Washington. Bob Northern died in Washington on May 31, 2020, aged 86, of a respiratory illness that he had been battling for in that year. ==Discography==