Yusef Abdul Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920 - December 23, 2013) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in America, following his conversion to Islam in 1950.

Although Lateef's main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, he also played oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also used a number of non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto. He is known for having been an innovator in the blending of jazz with "Eastern" music. Peter Keepnews, in his New York Times obituary of Lateef, wrote that the musician "played world music before world music had a name."

Lateef wrote and published a number of books including two novellas entitled A Night in the Garden of Love and Another Avenue, the short story collections Spheres and Rain Shapes, also his autobiography, The Gentle Giant, written in collaboration with Herb Boyd. Along with his record label YAL Records, Lateef owned Fana Music, a music publishing company. Lateef published his own work through Fana, which includes Yusef Lateef's Flute Book of the Blues and many of his own orchestral compositions.

Biography

Early life and career

Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His family moved, in 1923, to Lorain, Ohio, and again in 1925, to Detroit, Michigan, where his father changed the family's name to "Evans".

Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Lateef was a proficient saxophonist by the time of his graduation from high school at the age of 18, when he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands. The first instrument he bought was an alto saxophone but after a year he switched to the tenor saxophone, influenced by the playing of Lester Young.

In 1949, he was invited by Dizzy Gillespie to tour with his orchestra. In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began his studies in composition and flute at Wayne State University. It was during this period that he converted to Islam as a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He twice made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

In 2005, Nicolas Humbert & Werner Penzel, directors of the famous Step Across The Border, film Brother Yusef, in his wooden house in the middle of a forest in Massachusetts.

Prominence

Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association which continued until 1959; the earliest of Lateef's album's for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap with them. Musicians such as Wilbur Harden (trumpet, flugelhorn), bassist Herman Wright, drummer Frank Gant, and pianist Hugh Lawson were among his collaborators during this period.

By 1961, with the recording of Into Something and Eastern Sounds, Lateef's dominant presence within a group context had emerged. His 'Eastern' influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings, with spots for instruments like the rahab, shanai, arghul, koto and a collection of Chinese wooden flutes and bells along with his tenor and flute. Even his use of the western oboe sounds exotic in this context; it is not a standard jazz instrument. Indeed, the tunes themselves are a mixture of jazz standards, blues and film music usually performed with a piano/bass/drums rhythm section in support. Lateef made numerous contributions to other people's albums including his time as a member of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's Quintet during 1962-64.

Lateef's sound has been claimed to have been a major influence on the saxophonist John Coltrane, whose later period free jazz recordings contain similarly "Eastern" traits. For a time (1963-66) Lateef was signed to Coltrane's label, Impulse. He had a regular working group during this period, with trumpeter Richard Williams and Mike Nock on piano.

In the late 1960s he began to incorporate contemporary soul and gospel phrasing into his music, still with a strong blues underlay, on albums such as Detroit and Hush'n'Thunder. Lateef expressed a dislike of the terms "jazz" and "jazz musician" as musical generalizations. As is so often the case with such generalizations, the use of these terms do understate the breadth of his sound. For example, in the 1980s, Lateef experimented with new-age and spiritual elements.

In 1960, Lateef again returned to school, studying flute at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Music in 1969 and a master's degree in music education in 1970. Starting in 1971, he taught courses in "autophysiopsychic music" at the Manhattan School of Music, and he became an associate professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1972.

In 1975, Lateef completed his dissertation on Western and Islamic education and earned a Ed.D. in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In the early 1980s Lateef was a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at Ahmadu Bello University in the city of Zaria, Nigeria. Returning to the US in 1986 he took a joint teaching position at the University of Massachusetts and Hampshire College.

Later career

His 1987 album Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album. His core influences, however, were clearly rooted in jazz, and in his own words: "My music is jazz."

In 1992, Lateef founded YAL Records. In 1993, Lateef was commissioned by the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne to compose The African American Epic Suite, a four-part work for orchestra and quartet based on themes of slavery and disfranchisement in the United States. The piece has since been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

In 2010 he received the lifetime Jazz Master Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent federal agency. Established in 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award is the highest honor given in jazz.

Manhattan School of Music, where Lateef had earned a bachelor's and a master's degree, awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012.

Lateef's last albums were recorded for Adam Rudolph's "Meta Records". To the end of his life, he continued to teach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. Lateef died on the morning of December 23, 2013, at the age of 93, survived by his son, Yusef Lateef and his wife, Ayesha Lateef.

Discography

As Leader/Co-leader

Year recorded	Title	Label	Notes
1957	Jazz Mood	Savoy	Debut release from second recording session
1957	Jazz for the Thinker	Savoy
1957	Stable Mates	Savoy	Split album with A. K. Salim
1957	Before Dawn: The Music of Yusef Lateef	Verve
1957	Prayer to the East	Savoy
1957	Jazz and the Sounds of Nature	Savoy
1957	The Sounds of Yusef	Prestige
1957	Other Sounds	Prestige/New Jazz	Released 1959
1958	Lateef at Cranbrook	Argo	Live album
1959	The Dreamer	Savoy
1959	The Fabric of Jazz	Savoy
1959	Cry! - Tender	Prestige/New Jazz	Includes one track from 1957
1960	The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef	Riverside
1960	The Centaur and the Phoenix	Riverside
1961	Lost in Sound	Charlie Parker
1961	Eastern Sounds	Prestige/Moodsville
1961	Into Something	Prestige/New Jazz
1963	Jazz 'Round the World	Impulse!
1964	Live at Pep's	Impulse!	Live album
1965	1984	Impulse!	Live album
1965	Psychicemotus	Impulse!
1966	A Flat, G Flat and C	Impulse!
1966	The Golden Flute	Impulse!
1967	The Complete Yusef Lateef	Atlantic
1968	The Blue Yusef Lateef	Atlantic
1969	Yusef Lateef's Detroit	Atlantic	Includes one track from 1967
1969	The Diverse Yusef Lateef	Atlantic	Includes one track from 1968
1970	Suite 16	Atlantic
1971	The Gentle Giant	Atlantic	Includes two tracks from 1970
1972	Hush 'N' Thunder	Atlantic
1973	Part of the Search	Atlantic	Includes one track from 1971
1974	10 Years Hence	Atlantic	Live album with studio overdubs
1976	The Doctor is In... and Out	Atlantic
1977	Autophysiopsychic	CTI	With Art Farmer
1979	In a Temple Garden	CTI
1983	Yusef Lateef in Nigeria	Landmark
1983	Hikima - Creativity	Centre For Nigerian Cultural Studies	Live album - limited edition
1987	Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony	Atlantic	Grammy Award for Best New Age Album
1988	Concerto for Yusef Lateef	Atlantic
1989	Nocturnes	Atlantic
1990	Meditations	Atlantic
1991	Yusef Lateef's Encounters	Atlantic
1992	Heart Vision	YAL
1992	Tenors of Yusef Lateef and Archie Shepp	YAL	With Archie Shepp
1992	Tenors of Yusef Lateef and Von Freeman	YAL	With Von Freeman
1992	Yusef Lateef Plays Ballads	YAL
1993	Tenors featuring Rene McLean	YAL	With Rene McLean
1993	Woodwinds	YAL	With Ralph M. Jones III
1993	The African-American Epic Suite	ACT
1993	Metamorphosis	YAL
1993	Claiming Open Spaces	YAL	Soundtrack
1994	Suite Life	YAL
1994	Tenors of Yusef Lateef & Ricky Ford	YAL	With Ricky Ford
1994	Cantata	YAL
1995	The World at Peace	YAL/Meta	Live album with Adam Rudolph
1996	Yusef Lateef's Fantasia for Flute	YAL
1996	Full Circle	YAL
1997	Sonata Fantasia	YAL	With Alex J. Marcelo
1997	CHNOPS: Gold & Soul	YAL
1997	Earth and Sky	YAL	With Sayyd A. Al-Khabyyr
1998	9 Bagatelles	YAL
1998	Like the Dust	YAL
1999	Live in Seattle	YAL	With Adam Rudolph
1999	A Goodness Inwardness Forgiving Tolerance	YAL	With Adam Rudolph
2000	Beyond the Sky	YAL/Meta	With Adam Rudolph
2001	Live at the Luckman Theater	YAL	With Eternal Wind
2001	Earriptus	YAL
2001	So Peace	YAL
2002	A Tribute Concert for Yusef Lateef	YAL	Live album
2002	Homage to Yusef Lateef	YAL	Live album with Corvini-Iodice Roma Jazz Ensemble
2003	In the Garden	YAL	With Adam Rudolph and Go: Organic Orchestra
2004	Roots Run Deep	RogueArt	With Nicolas Humbert and Marc Parisotto - released 2012
2005	Influence	B-Flat/Discograph	With Stéphane Belmondo and Lionel Belmondo
2008	Voice Prints	Meta	With Roscoe Mitchell, Adam Rudolph and Douglas R. Ewart - released 2012
2009	Towards the Unknown	Meta	With Adam Rudolph - released 2010

As sideman

With Cannonball Adderley

• The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York (Riverside, 1962)
• Cannonball in Europe! (Riverside, 1962)
• Jazz Workshop Revisited (Riverside, 1962)
• Autumn Leaves (Riverside, 1963)
• Nippon Soul (Riverside, 1963)

With Nat Adderley

• That's Right! (Riverside, 1960)

With Ernestine Anderson

• My Kinda Swing (Mercury, 1960)

With Art Blakey

• The African Beat (Blue Note, 1962)

With Donald Byrd

• Byrd Jazz (Transition, 1955)

With Paul Chambers

• 1st Bassman (Vee Jay, 1961)

With Art Farmer

• Something You Got (CTI, 1977)

With Curtis Fuller

• Images of Curtis Fuller (Savoy, 1960)
• Boss of the Soul-Stream Trombone (Warwick, 1960)

With Dizzy Gillespie

• The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (Bluebird, 1937-1949 )

With Grant Green

• Grantstand (Blue Note, 1961)

With Slide Hampton

• Drum Suite (Epic, 1962)

With Louis Hayes

• Louis Hayes (Vee-Jay, 1960) also released as Contemplation

With Les McCann

• Invitation to Openness (Atlantic, 1972)

With Don McLean

• Homeless Brother (1973)

With Charles Mingus

• Pre-Bird (Mercury, 1960)

With Babatunde Olatunji

• Drums of Passion (Columbia, 1960)

With Sonny Red

• Breezing (Jazzland, 1960)

With Leon Redbone

• Double Time (Warner Bros., 1976)

With A. K. Salim

• Afro-Soul/Drum Orgy (Prestige, 1965)

With Clark Terry

• Color Changes (Candid, 1960)

With Doug Watkins

• Soulnik (New Jazz, 1960)

With Randy Weston

• Uhuru Afrika (Roulette, 1960)

With Frank Wess

• Jazz Is Busting Out All Over (1957)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]