Saturday, January 7, 2023

Dream Weapons present: LAST CELESTIAL NOMAD C90

 Yusef Abdul Lateef (William Emanuel Huddleston) 1920 – 2013


So happy new year I guess. Trying out Pixeldrain (looks very promising to me. Let me know how it works for you) with an old compilation of mine. This Yusef Lateef-tribute was originally shared back in January 2014. The link has been dead for years, so it was about time for a re-up. My lazy CD compilation-like design makes this appear somewhat cheap and disposable but it's actual content is really, really nice.

As far as I know, all our old mixes and shares have at least one active link. No more Mixcloud, Mediafire, pCloud or Yandex (Btw: did the uloz.to links work for you?) for me, but I'm sure I'll be back with some C60's & C90's nevertheless. Anyway, here's what I wrote:

Yusef left us the 23rd of December 2013 and it seems dying is the only effective career move for an ageing artist, so his music will undoubtly get some extra attention in the next couple of years.

Over the last couple of years openminded jazz fans of blogland and elsewhere have been enjoying a flood of long forgotten spiritual and exotic jazz collections, shared 'n rare vinylrips and re-releases. For reasons unknown the author, multi-instrumentalist, soul brother, the true «world jazz» pioneer and perhaps Mr. Spiritual himself Yusef Lateef is sometimes mentioned as an influence, but rarely included.

Although an excellent tenor saxophonist leaving us plenty of classic post bop, swing and third stream compositions and recordings to discover and enjoy, I wanted to compile 90 minutes focusing on what really made him sonically stand out from the very beginning. In 1957 alone, our sound searching genius recorded material for 13 soloalbums (all worth having). Along with the more conventional jazz numbers middle-eastern, far east, spiritual & indian themes as well as his gorgeous flute, oboe and bassoon-playing and use of unconventional instruments like bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul, koto, gong, earthboard + a Seven-Up bottle and a balloon is already there.

On Last Celestial Nomad you'll actually get the impression Yusef played his flute and oboe (and balloon) more often than he played his saxophone. In reality its the other way around. Although representative for my favorite kind of Yusef sounds these 19 highly spirited compositions from 19 different albums recorded over a period of 15 years (1957-1972) is not an attempt to make a best of, or a representative introduction. Its like a mixtape with a unifying theme using material from one artist exclusively. Enjoy!

 Here / Here

8 comments:

  1. Downloaded great, Moahaha. Probably have this on an old HD, but now i have it again and look forward to hearing it.

    Best,
    big sun (aka: bil)

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  2. Thanks big sun - Pixeldrain was your reccomendation, wasn't it?

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  3. Thank your for this super nice compilation... setting a vibe on a post-rain friday morning.. luvin'it... have a wonderful 2023!!!!!

    =-]

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    1. strange actually.... he didnt seem to work with Pharoah S.?..or did he?

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    2. Hello there! I've been revisiting my own selection lately, and enjoying it too - glad I'm not the only one:). He never worked with Pharoah or any of the biggest names of the 1960's scene. Not really. It seems to me Yusef did his own thing from the very start. Investigating and expanding his own sonic palette (much like Chico Hamilton did in his steadily groovin' way). By the end of the decade (60's) a lot of the free/avant post-Coltrane guys started slowing things down, and incorporated the tonality, groove and perhaps "a conventional beauty" that Yusef never really left. In retrospect they had a lot in common, but came from almost opposite places. Maybe their paths never really crossed. I don't know.

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  4. Many thanks! More flute is fine with me.

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    Replies
    1. I love the flute. Like drums it's (almost) as old as mankind and even the Neanderthals made them.

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