Customer Reviews

Centaur & The Phoenix

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I bought this CD more or less on a lark without much knowledge about the album or about Yusef Lateef. I really like this album. While basically in the hard bop vain, it has some avant-guarde touches, particularly in the harmonies and in the arrangment. It features a nine piece band including Clark Terry and Joe Zawinul. Nevertheless this album is very melodic. Lateef is a geat player on tenor sax and his flute playing is very beautiful, but what really stands out is his oboe playing. The mere fact that he's just about the only oboe virtuoso in jazz is interesting enough (I'm told it's a very difficult instrument to learn). Lateef was in his 30's and already had a recording career going when he took five years to study the oboe from a classical oboe master! "Every Day I Fall in Love", "Summer Song", and the hauntingly beautiful "Iqbal" particularly stand out. "Iqbal" also features Lateef on the Argol, and Indian double-reed instrument (akin to what snake charmers use.

I certainly plan to check out a lot more of Yusef Lateef's music. I can also strongly recommend "Three Faces of Yusef Lateef" and "Eastern Sounds", but this is the one I like best of the three.

I've only recently discovered Yusef Lateef, but I dig just about everything I've heard so far from this sensitive and gifted artist.

Whether on flute, sax, oboe, or whatever, this man had music coursing through his being. He plays with intensity, but not braggadocio. He is lyrical without being sappy. Delicate without being vapid.

I love players who understand restraint and who really choose their notes with care.

Lateef paints masterpieces of jazz music.

Early efforts to introduce modern classical elements into jazz, e.g., the work of Lennie Tristano or Teddy Charles in the early 1950s, actually anticipated Ornette Coleman and the avant garde by breaking jazz free from the chains of the chord structure. By the time the "Third Stream" came along later in the decade, it was debatable if the music was still jazz, as it was more like programme music, composed and mapped out in advance, with little room for improvisation. This album is actually one of the more enjoyable examples of Third Stream, with some great players on board and some masterful ensemble work. If you are a fan of 20th century classical music, you might enjoy these pieces. If what thrills you in jazz, however, is hearing the individual voices of great improvisors, this is destined to leave you cold.