This week's guest practically needs no introduction because you've been listening to him on our show for years. Dr. Brian Horton is a professor at North Carolina Central University, a jazz history scholar, and a prolific musician. Gina calls him up to talk about all of the above and music programs at historically Black colleges and universities.
Brian Horton has shared his music with About South listeners for the past four years. Photo by Chris Charles.
Dr. Brian Horton has been the man behind About South's music since the very beginning, and he’s known he wanted to pursue music since the beginning of his life. As a child in eastern North Carolina, Brian dreamed of playing guitar, but his musical journey began when a teacher thrust a saxophone into Brian's hands. His family didn’t necessarily have a lot of professional musicians, however. Nevertheless, he became one, and did so with one of the world’s comparatively younger musical genres.
Jazz music was born roughly 100 years ago. It’s the music that has shaped America as we see it today, Brian says, and it’s one of the first original art forms of the United States. “It's the music that was used in our everyday lives,” Brian says. And he doesn't mean just household names like Miles Davis; he's talking about way before then, when music existed side-by-side with American life and with how we looked at ourselves as humans.
Brian on stage for the Brand New Day album release concert in Durham, North Carolina
Brian has lived all over the place, but he eventually returned home to North Carolina. For Brian, there’s a comfort in being around what he knows and in teaching students who come from upbringings similar to his own. “Me returning to [North Carolina Central University] to teach, there’s a difference there,” Brian says.
The students in his classes are mostly Black, and they come from musical church backgrounds. Their approach to music is often more visceral than Brian experienced in other parts of the country, where many students first engage with music through books and instructors. Brian senses a familiarity in his students, something that pushed them all into music. “I can feel something coming out of them when they play the music,” he says. “My job is to kind of shape and refine that as much as possible, but I dare not change what it is that they’re doing.”
We’d like to thank Brian for four years of beautiful music. You can find his work at brianhorton.com.
You can also watch a performance of his recent work here:
BLACK MAGIC Composed and Arranged by Brian Horton Performed and recorded Monday, March 20th, 2017 Voertman Hall, University of North Texas