domingo, 11 de octubre de 2009

Yusef LATEEF - Yusef LATEEF's Detroit 1969


Yusef LATEEF - Yusef LATEEF's Detroit 1969
Label: Atlantic / Collectables
Audio CD: (August 13, 2002)

Jazz

After issuing the spiritually compelling and contemplatively swinging Complete Yusef Lateef in 1967, Dr. Yusef Lateef's sophomore effort for Atlantic shifted gears entirely. Lateef chose his old stomping grounds of Detroit for an evocative musical study of the landscape, people, and spirit and terrain. Lateef spent the late-'50s in the city recording for Savoy, and this recording captures the memory of a great city before it was torn apart by racial strife and economic inequality in 1967. There is no way to make a record that suggests Detroit without rhythm, and Lateef employs plenty of it here in his choice of musicians: conga players Ray Barretto and Norman Pride; Tootie Heath on percussion; Cecil McBee, Roy Brooks, and Bernard Purdie; electric bassist Chuck Rainey; electric guitarist Eric Gale; pianist Hugh Lawson; and a string quartet that included Kermit Moore. In other words, the same band from the Complete Yusef Lateef with some funky additions. The string section, as heard on the opener "Bishop School," "Belle Isle," "Eastern Market," and "Raymond Winchester" is far from the pastoral or classically seeking group of recordings past, but another rhythmic and melodic construct that delves deep into the beat and the almighty riff that this recording is so full of. For all of the soul-jazz pouring forth from the Blue Note and Prestige labels at the time, this album stood apart for its Eastern-tinged melodies on "Eastern Market"; the "Black Bottom," gutbucket, moaning bluesiness on "Russell and Elliot," with Gale and Lateef on tenor trading fours in a slowhanded, low-end groove; and the solid, Motown-glazed, rocking Latin soul of "Belle Isle." The album ends curiously with the nugget "That Lucky Old Sun," played with a back porch feeling, as if the urban-ness of the set, with all of its polyrhytmic intensity and raw soul, had to be tempered at the end of the day with a good-old fashioned sit in the yard as the city's energy swirled around beyond the borders of the fenced lot. Lateef blows a beautiful tenor here, uing a motif from Sonny Rollins' version of the tune and slides it all the way over to Benny Carter in its sheer lyricism. It's the perfect way to close one of Lateef's most misunderstood recordings.
By Thom Jurek.
**
This tribute to the city of Detroit finds Yusef playing strong horn lines with a funky African beat. He even sings although some is unintellegible or repititious song name utterings.
My favorite song "Eastern Market" tells a musical story of the open market with a string quartet led by William Fischer and a horn section of the greats; Snookie Young,Jimmy Owens, and Danny Moore. Eric Gale funk picks that 60's guitar sound so recognizable.
On a short tune "Raymond Winchester" Lateef plays the entire song "talking" into his reed on the tenor sax. That African beat is so well produced it could be 1995 but it isn't and legends like Chuck Rainey on electric bass, Cecil McBee on stand up with Ray Baretto conga's, Albert "Tootie" Heath percussion and fabulous Bernard Purdie on drums make it all come together.
This album changed my musical interests in 1969 when I bought it at Canterburry Music Store on Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, SoCal. The same place I took drum lessons from Jim Keltner and bought my first set of white pearl Ludwigs with Zildjan cymbals so true that I would kill to get them back.
Highlights and songs more fitted into the contemporary jazz scene of the day are "Belle Isle" where you really hear Yusef Lateef's creative abilities and "Russell and Eliot" a beautiful song with strong electric bass and some good soloing by Eric Gale with drummer Bernard Purdie echoing a bit. This album has been a fav of mine for 32 years and I have heard and played some fine music, in that time, so a 5 is a real honor and so deserved.
By  Robert Foster.
**     
Yusef Lateef creates confounding listening situations. He's a deeply passionate musician who, to this day, explores the gamut of musical experience (check out his recent, nearly two dozen diverse YAL releases). Additionally, he's a thoughtful, erudite thinker who, with emotional conviction, delves into multifaceted musical journeys. But he consistently challenges preconceptions; recording albums that mix jazz, blues, gospel, Eastern, funk, pop, free, classical, meditative and other styles as he sees fit. His music is never dictated by demographic limitations. Still, he's one of jazz's most individual tenor players and one of its finest flautists. But – in deference to no one but his muse – he engages all his faculties of expression: singing, proselytizing, playing percussion and often improvising on unusual instruments like the Indian Shannai, the oboe and exotic flutes.

That brings us to the estimable new compilation, The Man With The Big Front Yard, a premiere sampler of Lateef's far and wide-ranging talents. This value-priced three-disc set combines four of the nearly one dozen albums Lateef made for Atlantic Records between 1967 and 1976 (he returned to the label briefly in the mid-eighties before starting his own YAL Records): his Atlantic debut, The Complete Yusef Lateef (1967), Yusef Lateef's Detroit (1969), Hush 'N' Thunder (1972) and The Doctor Is In . . . Out (1976).
By Douglas Payne.
**
01. Bishop school 3.03
02. Livingston playground  3.41
03. Eastern market  4.17
04. Belle isle  3.16
05. Russel and Eliot  4.51
06. Raymond Winchester  2.34
07. Woodward avenue  2.12
08. That lucky old sun  7.26
**
NoPassword
*
DLink
*

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario