Performance · Other credits

Yusef Lateef

real name Yusef Abdul Lateef (né William Emanuel Huddleston)

Chattanooga, United States · 1920-10-09 – 2013-12-23

Yusef Lateef is credited on 1,081 releases across 255 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1956–2025 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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Photo of Yusef Lateef

1,081

Credits

255

Albums

8

Decades active

217

In collections

Biography

source

Showing the Discogs bio

American jazz musician, artist, composer, and producer
Born 9 October 1920 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, died 23 December 2013 in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (aged 93)
Lateef was a jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in America, following his conversion to 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 featured many non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto in his performances.
Lateef had an inquisitive spirit and was never only a bop or hard bop soloist. He disliked the term "jazz", consistently creating music that stretched (and even broken through) boundaries. A superior tenor saxophonist with a soulful sound and impressive technique, Lateef was one of the top flutists around. He also developed into a talented jazz soloist on the oboe, was an occasional bassoonist, and introduced such instruments as the arghul (a double clarinet that resembles a bassoon), shanai (a type of oboe), and different types of flutes.
Lateef played "world music" long before the term was coined.

Bio from Discogs

Credited work

1,081 releases · 255 albums · active 1956–2025

  • Performance · 3,511
  • Other credits · 334
  • Production · 9

Studios: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey · Regent Sound Studios, New York City · Atlantic Studios · Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

Discography

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