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  • Packshot: Yusef Lateef – Blue Yusef Lateef Vinyl LP | Relix
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  • Packshot: Yusef Lateef – Blue Yusef Lateef Vinyl LP | Relix
  • the album cover for Yusef Lateef - Blue Yusef Lateef [180 Gram]
  • Back Cover: Yusef Lateef – Blue Yusef Lateef Vinyl LP | Relix
  • Image: Yusef Lateef – Blue Yusef Lateef Vinyl LP | Relix

Yusef Lateef – The Blue Yusef Lateef (LP Vinyl)

$ 59.95
$ 59.95
Est. 1974, Curated by Heads
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Product Details

Lateef spent decades proving that the blues was never just an American form, but a human one, rooted in the same longing that runs through every musical tradition on earth. Recorded for Atlantic in 1968, this session finds him drawing a direct line between the African diaspora and the modal experiments he'd been refining since his Detroit years alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley.

Yusuf Lateef was a leading representative of world music, long before world music was known as such in the jazz, pop and rock community. He integrated all kinds of oriental instruments in his jazz music, such as the koto, bamboo flute and tambura and also - as in this case - in his blues compositions. His saxophone playing is also flawless too and full of wonderful textures, hard and impulsive at one moment, cool and exotic at the next. On this album Lateef explores, in a painterly way, the border areas of the blues, in all their various guises and addresses both eastern and western cultures. "Juba Juba" begins with a drumbeat on a slave ship, the tempo builds up slowly and agonizingly, and is only penetrated by Lateef's plaintive flute and background voices singing »freedom, freedom, freedom«. After such a gloomy beginning the classical blues number "Like It Is" comes over like a breath of fresh air, with it's superb string quartet as the foundation. The R&B contributions on the other tracks testify to Lateef's skilled excursions into the realm of the blues, while the truly adventurous tracks such as "Back Home" and the mystic, Chinese odyssey "Moon Cup" weave a magical net of sheer pleasure. "The Blue Yusef Lateef" is in every possible way absolutely breathtaking. It is a milestone as a jazz album. As a blues album it is quite unique. But as a musical work of art it is a glorious and genial masterpiece.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Juba Juba (4:20)
2. Like It Is (7:32)
3. Othelia (4:31)
4. Moon Cup (3:16)

Side B

1. Back Home (4:59)
2. Get Over, Get Off And Get On (3:41)
3. Six Miles Next Door (4:41)
4. Sun Dog (3:05)

UPC: 4260019715890
Label: Speakers Corner
Release Date: 9.4.26
Format: LP Vinyl