December 23, 2013
Yusef Lateef I first saw and heard when I was a senior in high school. In 1959, I on a field trip at Wayne State University (WSU) with the Highland Park High School senior class. We were being shown around the WSU campus with the hope that some of us at least would find our way there after graduation. We were walking past the student center - McKinsey Hall - when we heard improvised music coming from the second floor. A couple of us broke off from the group and spent the rest of our time on campus with Yusef Lateef, tenor saxophone and flute and his musicians; among whom were Abe Woodley, vibes and Frank Morrelli, baritone saxophone. Prior to this instance, my first live experience of Yusef Lateef's music, I recall today hearing this music a part of a luncheon program that my friend Thom Pride hosted as DJ in my high school auditorium. Thom was playing Yusef Lateef's
album Jazz for Thinkers, the album cover of which was shot in front of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
After high school, my friends and I used to hang out at the Minor Key music venue in Detroit. The only time that I heard Yusef Lateef in person after WSU was once when Maynard Ferguson's band was playing there with Clifford Jordon on tenor. After the band's sets were finished, Yusef and Clifford got into something quite special with their tenors. I was quite impressed with what was happening musically. That evening, I managed somehow to sit down with Yusef Lateef over coffee. I don't remember everything that we talked about, but I expressed my disappointment that he was moving to New York.
I've collected Yusef Lateef's recordings and listened to his wonderful music over the past fifty years. There's a special rhythmic element in Lateef's music that I hear and feel in the music of other Detroit musicians - in the music of Barry Harris, Hugh Lawson, Shafi Hadi (Curtis Porter), Clarence Shaw, Charles McPherson, Sonny Red Kyner, Curtis Fuller, Wilber Harden, Lewis Hayes, among others. This is before Motown. Listen to Sonny Red's tune "Teef" on Lewis Hayes CD with Yusef Lateef and Barry Harris. There's rhythm and blues in this music, rather there's that in rhythm-and-blues.
http://www.freep.com/article/20131223/NEWS08/312230128/yusef-lateef-dies-obituary-jazz
January 9, 2014
Yusef Lateef I first saw and heard when I was a senior in high school. In 1959, I on a field trip at Wayne State University (WSU) with the Highland Park High School senior class. We were being shown around the WSU campus with the hope that some of us at least would find our way there after graduation. We were walking past the student center - McKinsey Hall - when we heard improvised music coming from the second floor. A couple of us broke off from the group and spent the rest of our time on campus with Yusef Lateef, tenor saxophone and flute and his musicians; among whom were Abe Woodley, vibes and Frank Morrelli, baritone saxophone. Prior to this instance, my first live experience of Yusef Lateef's music, I recall today hearing this music a part of a luncheon program that my friend Thom Pride hosted as DJ in my high school auditorium. Thom was playing Yusef Lateef's
album Jazz for Thinkers, the album cover of which was shot in front of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
After high school, my friends and I used to hang out at the Minor Key music venue in Detroit. The only time that I heard Yusef Lateef in person after WSU was once when Maynard Ferguson's band was playing there with Clifford Jordon on tenor. After the band's sets were finished, Yusef and Clifford got into something quite special with their tenors. I was quite impressed with what was happening musically. That evening, I managed somehow to sit down with Yusef Lateef over coffee. I don't remember everything that we talked about, but I expressed my disappointment that he was moving to New York.
I've collected Yusef Lateef's recordings and listened to his wonderful music over the past fifty years. There's a special rhythmic element in Lateef's music that I hear and feel in the music of other Detroit musicians - in the music of Barry Harris, Hugh Lawson, Shafi Hadi (Curtis Porter), Clarence Shaw, Charles McPherson, Sonny Red Kyner, Curtis Fuller, Wilber Harden, Lewis Hayes, among others. This is before Motown. Listen to Sonny Red's tune "Teef" on Lewis Hayes CD with Yusef Lateef and Barry Harris. There's rhythm and blues in this music, rather there's that in rhythm-and-blues.
http://www.freep.com/article/20131223/NEWS08/312230128/yusef-lateef-dies-obituary-jazz
January 9, 2014
The music-poet Amiri Imamu Baraka died today at the age of 79 years. I can’t recall when I was first made aware of Baraka or back in the day of Leroi Jones. He’ll aways be Baraka to me. I probably became acquainted with Baraka through the pages of the Evergreen Review, Jazz Review, or Downbeat - I subscribed to the latter publications and I used to buy the former to keep up with the Beat poets and others. This was in the fabulous early ‘60s.
This last two stanzas from Baraka’s poem “Wise 3” knock me out,
Son singin
fount some words. Think
he bad. Speak
they
language.
‘sawright
I say
wit me
look like
yeh, we gon be here
a taste
Yes, 79 years is just a taste - we’re only here for a taste. I often return to Barak’s Eulogies and his Transblusency: Selected Poems 1961-95. “Wise 3” is to be found on pages 222-3.
In 1998/9(?), my wife, some friends, and I travelled to Chicago from Detroit and Columbus, Ohio to attend a concert that featured David Murray’s Fo Deuk Revue at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Revue featured Senegalese traditional drummers, American musicians, among whom were Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Hugh Ragin, Craig Harris, and Amiri Baraka reading his poetry. This was the first time that I met Baraka. The second meeting took place in Columbus at the King Center. Baraka came through with his group that included DD Jackson, Wilber Morris, and Pheeroan AkLaff. Baraka recited his poetry as an integral part of the music. Both concerts was quite thrilling.
The last time that I saw and heard Amiri Baraka perform was in Guelph, Ontario Canada in September 2007 as part on the fabulous annual Guelph Jazz Festival. He on stage with bassist William Parker's Ensemble, performing The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield - William Parker's rearrangements of Curtis Mayfield's classic songs - "The Makings of You", "People Get Ready", among others. Leena Conquest provided the vocal and Amiri Baraka recited his poetry - Conquest sang "People Get Ready" while Baraka 'sang' his poetry. The rest of the group included Dave Burrell, piano; Hamid Drake, drums; Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Darryl Foster and Sabir Mateen, reeds. It was a wonderful evening of splendid music-making. The audience delighted in the music and showed its appreciation with a tremendous ovation. But there was one American in the audience, a person who both my friend Jim Murphy and I knew from the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Mi., who expressed to Murphy and me his view that Baraka and the performance were "unAmerican" in some crazy sense. This made me love Canada and doubt another American propagandist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/nyregion/remembering-an-activist-with-politics-and-poetry.html?_r=0
Trumpet-man Roy Campbell died recently. He was often a member of William Parker's ensemble. Their collaborations began in 1978. Roy Campbell studied with the great Lee Morgan. And like his mentor was of the fire-this-time school of trumpet masters. I only heard Roy Campbell once in person. I heard Roy with Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, and Hamid Drake at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor. Trumpet-men like Roy Campbell are rare now - too many slick-men; not enough Campbell and Tolliver trumpet-men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W8Q-eH93NA
The last time that I saw and heard Amiri Baraka perform was in Guelph, Ontario Canada in September 2007 as part on the fabulous annual Guelph Jazz Festival. He on stage with bassist William Parker's Ensemble, performing The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield - William Parker's rearrangements of Curtis Mayfield's classic songs - "The Makings of You", "People Get Ready", among others. Leena Conquest provided the vocal and Amiri Baraka recited his poetry - Conquest sang "People Get Ready" while Baraka 'sang' his poetry. The rest of the group included Dave Burrell, piano; Hamid Drake, drums; Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Darryl Foster and Sabir Mateen, reeds. It was a wonderful evening of splendid music-making. The audience delighted in the music and showed its appreciation with a tremendous ovation. But there was one American in the audience, a person who both my friend Jim Murphy and I knew from the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Mi., who expressed to Murphy and me his view that Baraka and the performance were "unAmerican" in some crazy sense. This made me love Canada and doubt another American propagandist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/nyregion/remembering-an-activist-with-politics-and-poetry.html?_r=0
Trumpet-man Roy Campbell died recently. He was often a member of William Parker's ensemble. Their collaborations began in 1978. Roy Campbell studied with the great Lee Morgan. And like his mentor was of the fire-this-time school of trumpet masters. I only heard Roy Campbell once in person. I heard Roy with Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, and Hamid Drake at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor. Trumpet-men like Roy Campbell are rare now - too many slick-men; not enough Campbell and Tolliver trumpet-men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W8Q-eH93NA
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