Yusef Lateef - An RIP and Appreciation Thread

'Nubian Lady' was a secret weapon of mine back when I used to DJ a funk night.

Still one of his best tunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hwXt4eGlw4#t=36

been listening to that eastern market song on a loop. love it's funkiness. can you see, even in this song, perhaps, the faintest hints of the "new age-y" direction that he apparently went in years later?

i dunno. could be the lingering remains of last night's 103.8° fever.

can someone give me an example of this "new agey" direction he went in? i never know what people mean when they say that -- like smooth jazz? or like sunlight and synths? or canned beats + indigenous folksong or something else?

also yeah eastern market is OUT OF CONTROL

this record is the one I've heard that is new agey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwwDowB0llA
it actually sounds kind of cool tbh

oh! yeah. hm.

that's unusual but interesting! i like it. it's even kinda horror soundtracky!? i guess it goes a little kenny g around the 4:30 mark but it's not offensively sappy or anything. when was he written off as "new agey"?

i was the employee in charge of the "new age" section of the store i worked at, and "new age" meant something way different in the 90s than it does now. some of the artists filed there when i worked at the store included tangerine dream, popol vuh, solo brian eno, + windham hill/kitaro/enya, etc and so on. i volunteered to be in that section bc no one wanted it. hehehehe.

well new age is the coolest now, so you were ahead of your time!
a little research tells me this album won the Grammy for Best New Age Album.

my favorite movement of the Little Symphony is the 3rd movement

Damn! that whole Detroit album absolutely smokes. I feel like a bit of a sinner for not being more familiar with this dude, will be remedying that.

Cool that he kept playing all the way to the end. I only ever heard _Eastern Music_ and regret not exploring further till now. Thanks for the list upthread, forks. Listening to _The Blue Yuseef Lateef_ right now and it's really terrific.

Sorry, Yusef -- didn't mean to both misspell your name and get an album title wrong.

Very sad to get this news. I saw him with the Belmondo brothers a few years ago and his playing and presence were both inspiring. Also this is one of my ringtones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQMx2mUpQZY

Memorial broadcast on WKCR now thru January 2.

Sad to hear of the passing of YL. He is responsible for one of my favorite pieces of music ever, and probably one I have turned to as much as anything else over the years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNVygwZ4V6o

Russell and Eliot sounding ridiculously good while I am grading papers.

I have been blasting out Eastern Sounds today, just absolutely classic

I picked up Live at Pep's today, happy to finally have a copy of it. Lateef is always just right.

I just picked up a copy of ‘The Diverse Yusef Lateef’. Damn it’s good. Funny, I’d listened to a couple of other albums years back and thought they were all over the place. This one is too, but feels of a piece (to me anyway).

It's four tracks over 28 minutes. There’s some funk, lots of flute, weird vocals, strings and some Eastern instrumentation that reminds me a bit of Alice Coltrane.

The album liner notes mention that the album was a response to fan requests for him to compose longer songs. I only wish they were longer!

Thanks for the tip, I never heard Diverse Yusef Lateef before!

Reading previous posts, I want to give a shout to vol. 2 of Live at Pep's which imo is even better.

Also a fun fact: he was a mentor and friend to a young Makaya McCraven.

daaamn nubian lady rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMjWIHSOURM

yeah, love that track

Kenny Barron, who wrote that tune, has an excellent album from around the same time, Peruvian Blue.