Yusef Lateef
Hard bop, Musical Artist
1920 – 2013
Who was Yusef Lateef?
Yusef Abdul Lateef was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.
Although Lateef's main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, he also played oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also used a number of non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto. He is known for having been an innovator in the blending of jazz with "Eastern" music. Peter Keepnews, in his New York Times obituary of Lateef, wrote that the musician "played world music before world music had a name."
Lateef wrote and published a number of books including two novellas entitled A Night in the Garden of Love and Another Avenue, the short story collections Spheres and Rain Shapes, also his autobiography, The Gentle Giant, written in collaboration with Herb Boyd. Along with his record label YAL Records, Lateef owned Fana Music, a music publishing company. Lateef published his own work through Fana, which includes Yusef Lateef's Flute Book of the Blues and many of his own orchestral compositions.
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- Born
- Oct 9, 1920
Chattanooga - Also known as
- William Huddleston
- William Emanuel Huddleston
- William Evans
- Dr. Yusef Lateef
- Lateef, Yusef
- Religion
- Islam
- Ethnicity
- African American
- Nationality
- United States of America
- Profession
- Education
- Manhattan School of Music
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Wayne State University
- Lived in
- Tennessee
- Died
- Dec 23, 2013
Shutesbury
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"Yusef Lateef." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 17 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/yusef_lateef>.
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