Results for "Yusef Lateef"

Yusef Lateef

Renaissance man Dr. Yusef Lateef was born William Emanuel Huddleston in Chattanooga, Tennessee on October 9th, 1920. At the age of 5 he moved with his family to Detroit. Growing up in Detroit he came in contact and forged friendships with many a giant of jazz such as Kenny Burrell, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Paul Chambers, and Donald Byrd. By the time he graduated from high school he was a proficient tenor saxophonist. He started soon after graduation playing professionally and touring with different swing orchestras among them those of Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge and Lucky Millender. In 1949 he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra (using the stage name William Evans), and stayed with them for one year

Impulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums

By CHRIS MAY

There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...

Prestige Records: An Alternative Top 20 Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Along with Alfred Lion's Blue Note and Orrin Keepnews' Riverside, Bob Weinstock's Prestige was at the top table of independent New York City-based jazz labels from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. Like those other two labels, Prestige built up a profuse catalogue packed with enduring treasures. Originally a record retailer, Weinstock ...

Riverside Records: An Alternative Top Ten

By CHRIS MAY

From 1953, when it was set up, to 1964, when it was acquired by ABC, Riverside Records rivalled Blue Note and Prestige as one of the leading independent jazz labels based in New York City. The founders of all three labels were jazz fans who operated on slim margins and became producers partly because they enjoyed ...

Drummers as Bandleaders: An Alternative Top Ten Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Drummers have been key members of every band which has changed the course of jazz history, from Max Roach with Charlie Parker to Elvin Jones with John Coltrane and onwards. Yet drummers have been the leaders of a surprisingly small proportion of landmark bands themselves. Chick Webb in the 1920s was the first of the few. ...

Hard Bop: An Alternative Top Ten

By CHRIS MAY

Hard bop was the jazz centre of the world from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s, producing many hundreds of immortal albums. Trying to whittle these down to a definitive Top Ten is fun—but it is a subjective and ultimately impossible exercise. In an attempt to dodge those hurdles, the list which ...

Chip Wickham: Blue To Red

By BRUCE LINDSAY

It's not always easy to feel uplifted and optimistic these days, when reasons to be downhearted seem to overwhelm the reasons to be cheerful. When an album's title refers to a planet's descent from life-giving blue to the deadness of red (Mars, in this context, but British flautist Chris Wickham fears that Earth may be heading ...

Chip Wickham: Blue To Red

By CHRIS MAY

The marketing thrust accompanying Chip Wickham's third album emphasises an affinity between the disc and the late 1960s / early 1970s work of Yusef Lateef and Alice Coltrane. Certainly, Blue To Red ticks two boxes: Wickham puts aside his saxophone to play only flute and alto flute, whose seraphic tones were favoured by Lateef and Coltrane; ...

A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 4

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

The immuno-booster series goes on... Here's another eclectic mixtape bringing you uplifting and soothing music recommended by jazz musicians. The fourth installment of this mix-tape series features selections by Nik Bartsch, Jamie Baum, Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, Alessandra Bossa, Jakob Bro, Moppa Elliott, Federica Michisanti, Chris Potter, Enrico Rava, Louis Sclavis, Mazz Swift ...

Pharoah Sanders: Live In Paris (1975)

By CHRIS MAY

Pharoah Sanders' catalogue of newly-discovered album releases is expanding as fast as those of his fellow travellers Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane. Which is great, but... most of the albums were recorded live, sometimes with poor audio capture, and do not always find the musicians at their best. You have to pick and choose between them. ...