toomanyhatz wrote:Picked up a Yusef Lateef anthology used recently. Don't know his stuff well, but a lot of it's from what I find a very interesting period in jazz history - mid 60s - early 70s. I guess similarly to what was going on in the rock world at the time, a lot of experimentalism was encouraged - maybe even insisted on. Some of the experiments are great - there's a track that basically grows out of the percussion track and is really minimal. On the other hand, there's a few blues jams that - as well-played as they are - don't interest me any more than, say, Johnny Winter.
Enough there to intrigue me, though, and I don't know much about him. Can anyone point me in the direction of specific albums that might be consistently good and interesting?
You can't go wrong with any of his Impulse titles, actually all of his albums are very good I think. I've heard most, not all and they are pretty consistent. He got into ethnic, i.e. reed instruments from Asia and Africa and inccorporated them into his music. Fange's recommemdation should be taken seriously. He did some early work on Prestige as well ai think. Most of my collection is Impulse.