Yusef Lateef (October 9, 1920 – December 23, 2013) – Like It Is (1968)
This phenomenal meditative jam was the highlight of The Blue Yusef Lateef, produced by Joel Dorn and released on Atlantic Records.
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The late great musical genius Yusef Lateef was a multi-instrumentalist trailblazer who mixed jazz with sounds from around the world.
William Emanuel Huddleston was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee but by the time he was five years old his family had moved to Detroit, where he was raised. He learned to play the saxophone as a teenager and after graduating from high school began playing with swing bands. In 1948 he moved to Chicago and briefly played with Sun Ra when he was still known as Sonny Blount. The next year, he toured with Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra. In the early 50s he became a Muslim and adopted his Islamic name. He returned to Detroit after his wife fell ill, and played with local musicians including guitarist Kenny Burrell and pianist Kenny Barron, all while exploring music from around the world.
Lateef’s quest for new sounds led to a prolific recording career. “With each project I try to do something I have never done before,” he said according to Adam Rudolph, a percussionist who collaborated with him. In 1957 alone he recorded ten albums with various groups.
He moved to New York in the late 50s and played with Babatunde Olatunji and Charles Mingus (in a group of future legends, alongside Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk). From 1962-64, he was a member of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet with Cannonball and his brother Nat Adderley.
In 1968 he released his 25th album as leader or co-leader. He conceived The Blue Yusef Lateef as an LP meant to celebrate America’s diversity so “hearts may come together,” in his words. It was produced by Joel Dorn and was the second of his albums on Atlantic Records.
On its back cover was a series of Lateef’s insights on the nature of love, life, and unity, one for each letter in the album’s title.
The album’s masterpiece was the phenomenal, seven-and-a-half-minute meditative jam “Like It Is,” which Lateef wrote. Besides himself on tenor saxophone, flute, pneumatic flute, shannie (shehnai), koto, tambura, scraper, and vocals, the album included Kenny Burrell on guitar, Cecil McBee on bass, pianist Hugh Lawson, and Roy Brooks on drums. “Like It Is” also featured violinists Selwart Clarke and James Tryon, Alfred Brown on viola, Kermit Moore on cello, and Sonny Red on the track’s amazing, soaring alto saxophone.
As jazz-funk came to dominate the jazz world in the seventies, Lateef switched labels to Creed Taylor’s CTI Records and released an album that showed he could funk with the best of them. In A Temple Garden (1979) was arranged and largely composed by keyboardist Jeremy Wall, one of the founding members of Spyro Gyra. Wall wrote six of the LP’s eight tracks, including its laid back, superb title track, mellow funk cut “Morocco,” and beautiful, mind-expanding funky jam “Confirmation.”
Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, In A Temple Garden had a stellar cast of musicians. Personnel included Randy and Michael Brecker on trumpet and tenor sax, respectively, guitarist Eric Gale, Steve Gadd on drums, Ray Barretto on percussion, and Wall behind the keyboards. Lateef was featured on flute, tenor saxophone, and vocals.
Further info:
“Yusef Lateef: Music with a whole new liquid,” by John Kruth, Wax Poetics, Issue #12, Spring 2005.
“Yusef Lateef, Innovative Jazz Saxophonist and Flutist, Dies at 93,” obituary, New York Times, December 25, 2013.
“Yusef Lateef: Never Done Before,” by Howard Mandel, Downbeat, August 17, 2021.
#jazz #YusefLateef