My first-ever listen to anything by Lateef. Not bad at all. I like his tone on tenor (only one of several instruments he plays here, of course) - reminds me of a sort of cross between Coltrane and Dexter Gordon, and like Gordon with an apparent penchant for playing slightly behind the beat.
Lateef was a fantastic musician! I beg to differ a bit with your description though ... first of all, he was older than Trane and had his act together much earlier (there are some big band sides of the great Gillespie bebop band on RCA with fine Lateef solos, for instance ...) - his tone is huge and full-bodied, more in the general Hawkins/Webster/Berry line I guess, and on the other side there's Lockjaw, and there were minor guys like Big Nick Nicholas (dedicatee of Coltrane's "Big Nick", and from what little can be heard a mighty fine musician in his own right).
Anyway, "Eastern Sounds" is close to desert island stuff for me, but it's just one of so many aspects of Lateef, who was a pioneer in many regards. His recordings as a leader, kicking in in the second half of the fifites, are a fine bunch. He led a quintet first with Curtis Fuller as second horn, then later with Wilbur Harden (who made a few recordings with Coltrane, and who may be a minor figure, too, but his recordings are wonderful). He would pack up his band in Detroit, they'd drive to RVG's, do a session and drive back ... the albums appeared on Savoy, Verve (just one), Prestige, and later Riverside as well (and still more on Savoy, and one on Argo, too ... and I think one on Charlie Parker Records?). The final one of the series, "Into Something", from 1961, is certainly a favourite. Others inlude "Jazz for the Thinker" (Savoy) and "Before Dawn" (Verve). And with regards to the "pioneer" thing: not just flute and oboe, but Lateef was at the forefront of "world music" or whatever you want to dub it, with the inclusion of traditional instruments from other regions of the world (i.e. the rabab as a bass instrument, or the arghul,a double pipe ... also he was exploring "exotic" modes and open/modal forms and more ...
I initially first heard him with Cannonball, too, and I love that band a lot - check out Lateef playing the blues on oboe ("Trouble in Mind" on "Cannonball in Europe", or "Brother John" on "Nippon Soul") for one!
When Lateef went on his own again, he made several albums for Impulse, another mighty fine bunch, including a live recording from Pep's, with trumpeter Richard Williams (one of Mingus' favourite trumpet players, all things considered a musician not recorded enough or not often under ideal circumstances ... the albums with Gigi Gryce might be the best ones to really hear him, his lone leader album on Candid is not entirely successful alas) and Mike Nock on piano, plus a driving rhythm section with Ernie Farrow on bass (a holdover from his fifties band) and James Black on drums. Now this band really was together, and there are some pretty wild rides on the live material, which was spread over the original LP and a later double album, later regrouped on two CDs.
But his studio albums on Impulse include some outstanding music, too, most notably "Psychicemotus".
His move to Atlantic was a change in direction, and it took me a while to appreciate that period and explore it more thoroughly, but there's some good stuff there, too (favourites, I think: "Blue Yusef Lateef", "YL in Detroit").
Later on, he had his own label (YAL) with sketchy distribution (and I wasn't around in time anyway) ... the tenors albums (one each with Von Freeman, Archie Shepp, Ricky Ford and René McLean) may be the best known ones, but the one I really like is "YL Plays Ballads" (I don't even know all the tenors albums though).
Also, he had a truly great one very late in the game, "Influence", with a french band around the Belmondo brothers - by themselves I don't find them all that interesting, but they put up a mighty good setting for Lateef!
So yeah, Brother Yusef rules in my house!
There's also a wonderful film about him ... if you can watch it from wherever you are, do so!
<![CDATA[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/tG7lyR4QzjQ" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/tG7lyR4QzjQ</a>]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG7lyR4QzjQ
