Belmondo & Yusef Lateef

Belmondo & Yusef Lateef

Genres: jazz

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About Belmondo & Yusef Lateef

This double set is an ambitious tribute by French jazz siblings Lionel and Stéphane Belmondo to the 87-year-old world-jazz pioneer, Yusef Lateef. The venerable exotic-reeds specialist himself is featured on the instruments - including oboe, "moan flute" and argol - that he brought to jazz half a century ago. In his long career, Lateef has fruitfully explored bop, classical, Middle Eastern, African and Oriental music. These two discs are broadly split between a classical wind-ensemble music - with cymbal washes, woody, rough-toned reed sounds, and crisp solos - and a mix of Lateef's early jazzy pieces and newer, more eclectic ones. Much of the music is slow and Lateef is often pretty quavery. But solos from polished trumpeter Stéphane and Monk-ish pianist Laurent Fickelson are excellent, guest trombonist Glenn Ferris is extraordinary, and the writing is consistently subtle. Still, you might need to be a fan of the inventive but marginal Lateef (as the Belmondos certainly are) for it to be more than a patchily illuminating curiosity.

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