Yusef Lateef
Jazz multi-instrumentalist who pioneered world music fusion.
Yusef Abdul Lateef was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Community in the United States. Though his main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, he also played oboe and bassoon—both rare in jazz—and non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shehnai, shofar, xun, arghul, and koto. Peter Keepnews, in his New York Times obituary, wrote that Lateef "played world music before world music had a name." He is known for blending jazz with "Eastern" music, and his recordings from the early 1960s, like Into Something and Eastern Sounds, clearly showcase those influences with spots for instruments like the rahab, shanai, arghul, koto, and Chinese wooden flutes and bells.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- William Emanuel Huddleston
- Born
- 9 October 1920
- Birthplace
- Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.
- Died
- 23 December 2013
- Place of death
- Shutesbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Genre
- New-age
- jazz
- post-bop
- jazz fusion
- swing
- hard bop
- third stream
- world music
- Occupation
- Musician
- composer
- educator
- spokesman
- author
- Years active
- 1938–2013
Facts from the source article.
Biography
Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as William Emanuel Huddleston. His family moved to Lorain, Ohio, in 1923, and then to Detroit, Michigan, in 1925, where his father changed the family name to Evans. Throughout his early life, he came into contact with Detroit-based jazz musicians including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones, and guitarist Kenny Burrell. By age 18, he was a proficient saxophonist and launched his professional career touring with swing bands.
The first instrument he bought was an alto saxophone, but after a year he switched to the tenor saxophone, influenced by Lester Young. In 1949, Dizzy Gillespie invited him to tour with his orchestra. In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began studying composition and flute at Wayne State University. During this period, he converted to Islam as a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and changed his name; he twice made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
He began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association that continued until 1959, with early albums also on Prestige's New Jazz subsidiary. Collaborators included Wilbur Harden (trumpet, flugelhorn), bassist Herman Wright, drummer Frank Gant, and pianist Hugh Lawson. In 1960, they played an extended gig at the Minor Key, a non-alcoholic club at Dexter and Burlingame in Detroit. By 1961, with recordings like Into Something and Eastern Sounds, his Eastern influences emerged clearly, using instruments such as the rahab, shanai, arghul, koto, and a collection of Chinese wooden flutes and bells along with his tenor and flute.
Prominence
Lateef made numerous contributions to other people's albums, including during his period as a member of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's Sextet from 1962–64. In the late 1960s, he began incorporating contemporary soul and gospel phrasing into his music on albums such as Detroit and Hush 'N' Thunder, presaging the emergence of jazz fusion. Lateef expressed a dislike of the terms 'jazz' and 'jazz musician' as musical generalizations. In the 1980s, he experimented with new-age and spiritual elements.
In 1960, he 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 became an associate professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. In 1975, Lateef received an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; his dissertation was a comparative study of Western and Islamic education.
Thereafter, he served as a senior research fellow at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at Ahmadu Bello University throughout the early 1980s. Returning to the United States in 1986, he took a joint faculty appointment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Hampshire College.
Later career
His 1987 album Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Recording. In 1992, Lateef founded YAL Records. In 1993, he 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. The Manhattan School of Music awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012. His last albums were recorded for Adam Rudolph's Meta Records. To the end of his life, Lateef continued to teach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, and Hampshire College in western Massachusetts.
Lateef died of prostate cancer on December 23, 2013, at the age of 93, survived by his wife, Ayesha, and son, Yusef. Following his death, his family auctioned off many of his instruments; woodwind player Jeff Coffin purchased Lateef's main tenor saxophone, as well as his bass flute. In October 2020, the UMass Fine Arts Center celebrated the centenary of Lateef's birth by producing 'Yusef Lateef: A Centenary Celebration,' a major online exhibit curated by Glenn Siegel and others, including '100 Responses to Yusef Lateef,' a series of video tributes by many prominent artists and former collaborators and students.
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