Yusef Lateef | Artist

Yusef Lateef was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer, born 1920 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Lateef was renowned as an innovator in blending jazz with Eastern music and for his playing ability of non-traditional jazz instruments such as flute, oboe and bassoon, as well as non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto. It was said that Lateef was one of the first "World Music" exponents, before that musical style had even been recognised. From an early age Lateef was immersed in the Detroit jazz scene and was invited by Dizzy Gillespie to tour with his orchestra in 1949. He began recording in 1957 with the excellent debut album Jazz Moods and in 1961 released his masterpiece Eastern Sounds. The tunes are a mixture of jazz standards, blues and film music usually performed with a piano/bass/drums rhythm section but Lateef performs them with oboe and non-western wind instruments, giving the music his characteristic exotic sound. Late in his career Lateef wrote orchestral works for the Atlanta and Detroit Symphony Orchestras and his 1987 album Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album. Throughout his career he released 63 studio albums plus several excellent live albums. Standouts include Jazz and the Sounds of Nature, The Centaur and the Phoenix, Cry! Tender, Eastern Sounds, Live at Pep's and Live at Ronnie Scott's.

Artist Website: wikipedia/Yusef_Lateef

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