AVID Jazz presents four classic Yusef Lateef albums, including original liner notes on Volume Two of a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD.
“The Sounds Of Lateef”; “The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef”; “Lateef at Cranbrook” and “The Centaur and the Phoenix”.
For our second volume of albums by Yusef Lateef we have focussed on his increasing use of “exotic” and strange, quirky instruments, many from the East, to expand and enhance his musical journey. Take a look at the variety of instruments used on our first album “The Sounds of Yusef Lateef” to see what we mean! Yusef on tenor sax, flute, argol and tambourine, Wilbur Harden on flugelhorn and balloon, Hugh Lawson on piano, Turkish finger cymbols, Seven Up bottles, balloon and bells, Ernie Farrow on bass and rabat, Oliver Jackson on drums, Chinese Gong and earth board! For “The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef” we find Yusef on tenor sax, flute and unusually and unexpectedly in a jazz context, playing oboe, Ron Carter on cello, Hugh Lawson on piano and celeste, Herman Wright on bass and Lex Humphries on drums. This album is notable for its “unusual ensemble blend achieved by the rich and supple cello of Ron Carter, best known as an able young bassist who has worked with both Thelonious Monk and Randy Weston”. Almost impossible to find on vinyl and only available as a rather expensive CD with no original artwork, “Yusef at Cranbrook” was the first live jazz album to be recorded at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Arts in 1958. We can hear again the Eastern influence, soon to be taken up by many jazz musicians such as Miles, Coltrane and Cecil Taylor. On this live occasion the band consisted of Yusef on tenor sax, tambourine, flute and arghool, Frank Morelli on baritone sax, Terry Pollard on piano, William Austin on bass and rebab and Frank Grant on drums, gong and finger cymbols. Our final album is “The Centaur and the Phoenix” and here we find Yusef on tenor sax, oboe and argol, Clark Terry and Richard Williams on trumpets, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Tate Houston on baritone sax, Josea Taylor on bassoon, Joe Zawinul on piano, Ben Tucker on bass and Lex Humphries on drums. To quote from the original liner notes….. “A new album by YUSEF LATEEF is invariably greeted with considerable interest and expectation, for his abundant creativity and his emphasis on unusual instruments and sounds have established an aura of excitement and surprise around his work. But this LP can be considered extra surprising, even for a Lateef album, as Lateef’s fertile musical imagination continues to move into intriguingly new and different areas”. “On this occasion, Yusef has chosen to underline the big, virile sound of his own playing with the big, full sound of a nine piece group”.
All four albums have been digitally re-mastered
CD1
1-5: ‘Sounds of Lateef’
1. Take The “A” Train
2. Playful Flute
3. Love and Humor
4. Buckingham
5. Meditation
6-13: ‘The Three Faces of Lateef’
6. Goin’ Home
7. I’m Just a Lucky So and So
8. Quarantine
9. From Within
10. Salt Water Blues
11. Lateef Minor 7th
12. Adoration
13. Ma - He’s Making Eyes At Me
CD2
1-4: ‘Lateef at Cranbrook’
1. Morning
2. Brazil
3. Let Every Soul Say Amen
4. Woody N’ You
5-11: ‘The Centaur and the Phoenix’
5. Revelation
6. Apathy
7. Ev’ry Day (I Fall In Love)
8. The Centaur and The Pheonix
9. Iqbal
10. Summer Long
11. The Philanthropis
