Yusef Lateef & Archie Shepp

Yusef Lateef & Archie Shepp

Similar artists via Last.fm

The New Archie Shepp Quartet Max Roach & Archie Shepp Archie Shepp Quartet Archie Shepp & Jeanne Lee Rudolph Johnson

About Yusef Lateef & Archie Shepp

Lateef first began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records working with musicians such as Wilbur Harden, a non-exclusive association which continued until 1959; the earliest of Lateef's album's for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap with them. By 1961, with the recording of Into Something, Lateef's dominant presence within a group context had emerged. His "Eastern" influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings; while they remain within the bounds of approachability for most Western ears, his tendency to make use of instrumentation from outside western music is very conspicuous. During this period he made numerous contributions to other people's albums and was a member of Cannonball Adderley's Quintet for two years (1962-64). Lateef's sound has been claimed to have been a major influence on the saxophonist John Coltrane, whose later period free jazz recordings contain similarly "Eastern" traits. For a time (1963-66) Lateef was signed to Coltrane's label, Impulse. He had a regular working group during this period, with trumpeter Richard Williams and Mike Nock on piano. They enjoyed a residency at Pep's Lounge during June 1964; an evening of which has been issued on LP and CD. In 1992, Lateef founded YAL Records, his own label for which he records today. In 1993, Lateef was commissioned by the WDR Radio Orchestra to compose The African American Epic Suite, a four part work for orchestra and quartet based on themes of slavery and disfranchisement in the United States. The piece has since been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Lateef has expressed a dislike of the terms "jazz" and "jazz musician" as musical generalizations. As is so often the case with such generalizations, the use of these terms do understate the breadth of his sound. For example, in the 1980s, Lateef experimented with new age and spiritual elements. His 1987 album Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony won the Grammy award for Best New Age Album. His core influences, however, are clearly rooted in jazz, and in his own words: "My music is jazz.

Taken from Last.fm

123 listeners  ·  2,026 plays via Last.fm