Last Savoy Sessions

Multi-instrumentalist and educator Yusef Lateef has a total command of African American, African, and Middle Eastern musical traditions. These sessions, recorded in 1957 and 1959 for Savoy, feature several Detroit-area musicians, including Bernard McKinney/Kiane Zawadi on euphonium and Wilbur Harden on flügelhorn. The dates capture Lateef's early efforts in creating jazz-related world music. Of course, the Detroit-born Lateef's roots are in the jazz tradition, his tenor sax blending with Lester Young's lyricism and Ben Webster's big tone, pointing toward John Coltrane on the midtempo tune "The Dreamer," the boppish "8540 12th Street," and the jazz-meets-North-Africa chestnut, "A Night in Tunisia," which Lateef had played in Dizzy Gillespie's big band in the '40s. Foreshadowing the eclecticism of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lateef's oboe performance on the charming "Oboe Blues" and his florid flute work on the Afro-Moorish "Prayer to the East" and "Gypsy Arab" would be equally welcome in Egypt's lower Nile Valley and New York's Lower East Side. Simply put, the music of Yusef Lateef is local, international, and timeless. It's been that way at least since these late-'50s sessions. --Eugene Holley Jr.