RIP Yusef Lateef

I was sad to hear this last winter. He was a very versatile, original and interesting musician.

There aren't a lot of oboe soloists in jazz. Yusef was great on that, especially when he pulled those minor thirds sharp to create tension. He even played the bassoon on one album. (One of the few other jazzmen who played both of those is Australia's Erroll Buddle - mainly a tenor saxophone player.)

Like Cannonball Adderley, he played a King saxophone. There was probably a promotion deal there.

I recommend his outstanding Impulse album, "A Flat, G Flat and C", though it hasn't been reissued on CD yet, apart from one of those "sneeze and you'll miss it" Japanese ones. There are LPs of it on eBay usually. It starts with a very heartfelt blues on tenor, and also has him on alto saxophone. Probably borrowed Cannonball's horn. There's an oboe track, and the album ends with a very atmospheric track on a Japanese wooden flute. Hugh Lawson's piano work on that album adds a lot to it.

The piece "Nubian Lady", from 1971, is a wonderful slow funk track on flute.

For quite a while, I've been wanting to get his Savoy recordings from 1957 to 1959. Savoy albums are  a bit difficult to track down. In the 1950s, they were up there with Blue Note and Prestige, and all three used Rudy van Gelder. Toward the end of the 50s, Savoy reduced their jazz recording to almost nothing. Yusef's Savoys have a lot of fine sidemen, including Curtis Fuller, Wilbur Harden, Hugh Lawson and Doug Watkins.