Year: 1959
Genre: Jazz
Label: OJC, Prestige
Quality: Flac+Cue+Log+Artwork
Total Time: 37:12
Size: 231 MB(+5%)
Year: 1959
Genre: Jazz
Label: OJC, Prestige
Quality: Flac+Cue+Log+Artwork
Total Time: 37:12
Size: 231 MB(+5%)
Tracklist
01 — Sea Breeze
02 — Dopolous
03 — Cry!-Tender
04 — Butter’s Blues
05 — Yesterdays
06 — The Snow Is Green
07 — If You Could See Me Now
08 — Ecaps
personnel :
Yusef Lateef — Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Oboe
Lonnie Hillyer — Trumpet
Hugh Lawson — Piano
Herman Wright — Bass
Frank Gant — Drums
Wilbur Harden — Flugelhorn
Ernie Farrow — Bass
Oliver Jackson — Drums
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. This is
meditative music with a stunningly rich rhythmic palette for how
muted and edgeless it is. And, like John Cage or Morton Feldman,
the absence of those edges was written in; it’s not random. On
tunes like the aforementioned, «Butter’s Blues,» or even «If You
Could See Me Now,» Lateef could take the blues and move it into
shadowy territory, pulling out of the intervals and changes certain
harmonic concepts to turn the music back on itself. If restraint
got practiced in the dynamic range, the drama in the music would be
all the greater because of the wider harmonic palette — because it
could be heard, not just felt. The result is a seamless, velvety,
yet poignant take on the blues that echoed the tears referenced in
the title of the album. And yet, the beauty, such a tender beauty,
was so unspeakably fragile that the brass and reed instruments
seemed to hover over the rhythm section and cut holes in the air
like fine razors that can only be praised for the fineness of their
slash. This was the beginning of Lateef’s change in direction and,
as a result, it deserves to be noted for that. However, it needs to
be doubly noted for its truly magnificent sound, texture, playing,
composition, and choice of tunes. ~ Thom Jurek
