Customer Reviews

Gentle Giant

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The song "Nubian Lady" is classic slow r&b jazz. The song reminds me of driving around the ghetto at 3AM on a warm summer night. With windows down you creep from street to street taking in the nightly sights, sounds, and smells. The rest of the disc falls into the same r&b jazz category...some of it with an exotic feel. My only complaint is the cover of "Hey Jude".... it's simply awful. The sound quality is so bad that the inlay card for the CD says "Dont adjust your sound system, adjust your mind." I found it easier to adjust by skipping this track entirely. This album sounds very dated but that adds to the value of this music. The flutes and the electric piano are so tight. There are some strange vocals on a few songs but they aren't lyrical. These vocals only add to the dark ghetto mystique of this disc. Dont be afraid to check this out.

Check this out! Matter of fact check out every single Yusef Lateef release in the catalog. Beginners should purchase "Every Village has a song" others should move on to "The man with the big Back yard" BUY IT BUY IT!!!!

Great album. Accessible flute-based playing (+ Yusef's trademark battery of oddball wind instruments). One caveat, and I will not dock a star in the rating for this: the loud, long, distortion-sound version of Hey Jude is redolent of its time, probably a necessary pop inclusion to make the record company happy, and the one cut on the album that I always jump past because the sheer shrill, grating quality of the piece simply annoys my fifty-year-old ears. The late 60s and early 70s are over...and this distorted approach to music, while fashionable in its day, frankly, sucked then and it sucks now. However, buy this album for the stellar, accessible Lateef compositions and playing on all the other cuts. Excellent, and always on my listen list.

I bought this on vinyl for one dollar at a yard sale. It's rather nice to listen to, slow breakbeats and flute, guitar and strings. There's a nice head nodding rhythm to the tracks, while various people very nicely jam on the flute, etc. It's funky, and light. Something I'd listen to on a sunny day with the windows up. The hey Jude track isn't bad, and I didn't consider it to be too bad of recording quality. I was suprised at the quality of all the music, actually. I'm not familiar with lots of music from this era, but do listen to and collect all genres of music and this is a very welcome addition.