Yusef Lateef Essentials
Playlist - 15 Songs
One of the most adventurous figures in jazz history, reedist Yusef Lateef started as a hard-blowing tenor saxophonist in the late ‘40s, but he spent the subsequent six decades exploring. He was a proto-world music pioneer: He complemented his flute and sax work with double reeds like oboe, as on the blues ballad “Rasheed”, and the Indian shehnai. Even during the ‘50s, while still immersed in the hard-bop world, he was investigating Eastern modes—check out the hypnotic “Gypsy Arab”—and when he made “Oasis” in the ‘60s he showed himself to be spiritual kin to John Coltrane.
Featured Artists
Yusef Lateef Essentials features Yusef Lateef, Cannonball Adderley Sextet and more