Robert Northern, known professionally as Brother Ah, was an American jazz French hornist. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Vienna Academy during the 1950s and began his career as a session musician in the late 1950s and 1960s, performing with jazz luminaries such as Donald Byrd, John Coltrane, and the Jazz Composers Orchestra. He also collaborated with Don Cherry, Thelonious Monk, and John Lewis, among others. In the 1970s, Northern released several albums as a bandleader, including Sound Awareness (1973), which featured Max Roach and M’Boom. From 1970 to 1973, he taught at Dartmouth College, followed by Brown University from 1973 to 1982, and later at the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C. In addition, Northern founded the World Music Ensemble and also hosted the jazz-oriented radio program The Jazz Collectors on WPFW. Brother Ah passed away in May 31, 2020, at the age of 86, after battling a respiratory illness.
