Yusef Lateef Live At Pep's Volume Two

Yusef Lateef - Live at Ronnie Scott's: January 15th 1966 (2016) {Gearbox Records RSGB1008CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 177 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 103 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1966, 2016 Ronnie Scott / Gearbox Records | RSGB1008CD
Jazz / Post Bop / Modern Creative

I love the idea of Gearbox records, especially the Tubby Hayes & Don Rendell items, but have been put off in the past by the high vinyl retail price for what is often cassette sourced material (but do ensure you check out the Binker and Moses issue, they are sublime). This one, Lateef with Stan Tracey, Laird & Eyden, effectively the house rhythm section for Ronnie's, is a reel to reel tape made by Les Tomkins with the nod from Ronnie, but not the band. We are still nowhere near audiophile territory, but it is good enough to enjoy. Generally a laid back affair, it is nevertheless musically satisfying, with Stan Tracey a little receded in the mix, if you can apply the term, as this is pretty much a raw transfer by the sound of it. Lateef being front and centre though, on a combination of Flute, Shehnai, Xun and Tenor Sax, definitely helps.

A truly sensational find, Atlantis Lullaby presents a never-before-heard performance recorded in Avignon, France. Featuring Yusef Lateef in a quartet set with fellow stars Kenny Barron, Bob Cunningham and Albert “Tootie” Heath. Among the highlights are a fantastic flute/piano duet by Lateef and Barron playing the pianist’s beautiful ballad, “A Flower,” as well as extended readings of the classic, “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,” Lateef’s “Yusef’s Mood,” and Barron’s “The Untitled.” This project was produced by the renowned Zev Feldman and released in collaboration with the Yusef Lateef Estate. The audio has been transferred and newly remastered from the original concert tapes licensed from the archives of the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA).

In 1959, Yusef Lateef began using the oboe in his recording sessions and on live dates. This album marks that occasion, and is thus a turning point in an amazingly long and varied career. Accompanied by Lonnie Hillyer on trumpet, Hugh Lawson on piano, bassist Herman Wright, and drummer Frank Gant, Lateef was digging deeply into a new lyricism that was Eastern-tinged (the full flavor of that obsession would be issued two years later on Eastern Sounds and had been touched upon two years earlier on Other Sounds, released on New Jazz, where Lateef had used an argol as well as his sax and flute), modally informed, and distinctly light in texture - with the exception of the deep, dark, arco work at the beginning of "Dopolous," by Wright. Lateef was already moving away from what most people would call jazz by this time, yet, as evidenced here, his music remained challenging and very accessible…

Yusef Lateef's music from the early '70s commands large doses of both appeal and skepticism. At a time when funk and fusion were merging with the intensely volatile and distrustful mood of the U.S., Lateef's brand of Detroit soul garnered new fans, and turned away those who preferred his earlier hard bop jazz or world music innovations. Thus The Gentle Giant is an appropriate title, as Lateef's levitational flute looms large over the rhythm & blues beats central to the equation. Kenny Barron's Fender Rhodes electric piano is also a sign of the times, an entry point introducing him to the contemporary jazz scene, and on that point alone is historically relevant. The post-Bitches Brew, pre-Weather Report/Headhunters time period is to be considered, and how this music put Lateef in many respects to the forefront of the movement…

Originally on the scene as a tenor saxophonist with the bands of Lucky Millinder, Hot Lips Page, Dizzy Gillespie and others in the late 1940s, Yusef Lateef spent most of the 1950s leading his own combo, studying at Wayne University, and taking up flute and oboe. I started using them in Detroit, to get rid of the monotony, said Lateef, this was one of the initial thoughts. After all, basically, music is just sound, in my opinion, any sounds of definite pitch.