Dr. Leonard Brown (pictured) is far from a typical academic. An ethnomusicology and music professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Brown holds joint appointments with the school’s Music and African American Studies Departments, specializing in the study of African music as it has developed in the western hemisphere. He has also branched out to study the role and function of music in human life.

But it is his role outside of the university that brings him to Bohemian Caverns this weekend. Brown has also spent decades as a professional musician and has performed with the likes of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, George Russell, Yusef Lateef, Alan Dawson, and Ed Blackwell. Tonight and tomorrow, the professorial saxophonist will team up with a group of local heavyweights, under the moniker Joyful Noise, to celebrate the launch of his first recording as a leader, a CD titled Suns of Sons.

“For a number of years I’ve been thinking of putting something out,” he told DCist. “Now I’m at a point in my life where I can be about doing music instead of just teaching it.”