Earlier this year, we did a review of the 11 cd boxed set of the Complete Keynote Jazz Collection and declared it to be the Reissue of the Year for 2014. Well, this 4 disc set on the complete 1957sessions (as well as among the first) by the jazz legend Yusef Lateef has got to be given serious consideration as well. Believe it or not, he released SEVEN, count ‘em SEVEN albums that year, mostly with a regular crew of Wilbur Harden/fh, Curtis Fuller/tb, Hugh Lawson/p, Ernie Farrow/b and either Oliver Jackson or Jouis Hayes/dr and a large panoply of exotic instruments including, but not limited to (deep breath…) sleigh bells, Chinese gong, argol, scraped gourd, rebob, cow bells, balloon, and 7-Up bottle. I don’t know if a Coke bottle would have sounded differently, but that’s a side issue. The main point here is that you get a mix of earthy blues, fervent bop and hard bop, forward thinking modern sounds and exotica from Asia and Africa that was iconoclastic and ground breaking at the time and still sounds relevant and hip today.
Lateef spends most of his time on the tenor here, and it’s time well spent. He’s got a deep and soulful sound, as well as a bluesy vibrato that as luscious to hear as it is frustrating to miss in today’s blowhards. Just get a load of him running through a few choruses of “Happyology,” or “ I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” and you’ll never want to let this sound leave your ears. His flute is ethereal and yet firmly in the blues, doing wonders with “Delilah” and “Playful Flute.” Even at this stage of his career, he’s experimenting with things like Indian reed whistles and argol, and while Hugh Lwson spends most of his time at the piano, he isn’t beyond scrapping a balloon or blowing into a pop bottle as on “Love and Humor,” and it works amazingly well. The take of “A Night in Tunisia” might have had its title changed to “A Night In Tibet” with all of the Himalayan reeds used in the intro.
And that is part of the attraction of this album. Lateef and company use the sounds of other countries and cultures as a drawing point, but not as a gimmick. The themes are still right in the pocket; in fact much of this material has that same advanced bop/blues sound as Mingus’ material of the same period, just without the neurosis and anger. Harden’s flugelhorn has a chestnut mare of a glow, as on “Song of Delilah” and “ Check Blues” and Fuller slides with a hook on “Morning” and “Blues in Space.” The perfect combination of vintage jazz and forward thinking world music is alarmingly enjoyable in a day when this style is presently imitated, but not even closely approached in terms of veracity. Give yourself a treat with this one; by the time you’re done taking in all of the wonderful sounds and reading the copious liner notes from all the albums as well as added info in the voluminous booklet, you’ll be glad for the treat.
Fresh Sound Records