Deep Focus

Many Jazz fans discovered the music of Yusef Lateef through his work as a sideman with artists like Charles Mingus and Cannonball Adderley.  He didn’t look like anyone else and he sure didn’t sound like anyone else: he’s playing an oboe? What’s an arghul?  What is this guy all about?  He answered these questions with several dozen distinguished albums on most of the leading Jazz labels between the late Fifties and the late Seventies.  

Then he seemed to take a tight turn. He moved to Nigeria for several years and then returned to the US in the mid-Eighties, leading a second career as an educator.  But he never stopped making music, releasing nearly as many records— now on his own YAL label—as he did in his early years.  This second career stretched on longer than the first, ending with his death in 2013, but remains largely unknown to the wider public.  

Throughout this second career, among his closest collaborators was percussionist and bandleader Adam Rudolph.  Adam will share personal stories and first-hand insights from his years with this master musician.  Join host Mitch Goldman for a rebroadcast of this Deep Focus from 2019. 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #AdamRudolph #YusefLateef #MitchGoldman #JazzAlternatives #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #Jazz

Many Jazz fans discovered the music of Yusef Lateef through his work as a sideman with artists like Charles Mingus and Cannonball Adderley.  He didn’t look like anyone else and he sure didn’t sound like anyone else: he’s playing an oboe? What’s an arghul?  What is this guy all about?  He answered these questions with several dozen distinguished albums on most of the leading Jazz labels between the late Fifties and the late Seventies.  

Then he seemed to take a tight turn. He moved to Nigeria for several years and then returned to the US in the mid-Eighties, leading a second career as an educator.  But he never stopped making music, releasing nearly as many records— now on his own YAL label—as he did in his early years.  This second career stretched on longer than the first, ending with his death in 2013, but remains largely unknown to the wider public.  

Throughout this second career, among his closest collaborators was percussionist and bandleader Adam Rudolph.  Adam will share personal stories and first-hand insights from his years with this master musician.  Join host Mitch Goldman for a rebroadcast of this Deep Focus from 2019. 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #AdamRudolph #YusefLateef #MitchGoldman #JazzAlternatives #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #Jazz

Many Jazz fans discovered the music of Yusef Lateef through his work as a sideman with artists like Charles Mingus and Cannonball Adderley.  He didn’t look like anyone else and he sure didn’t sound like anyone else: he’s playing an oboe? What’s an arghul?  What is this guy all about?  He answered these questions with several dozen distinguished albums on most of the leading Jazz labels between the late Fifties and the late Seventies.  

Then he seemed to take a tight turn. He moved to Nigeria for several years and then returned to the US in the mid-Eighties, leading a second career as an educator.  But he never stopped making music, releasing nearly as many records— now on his own YAL label—as he did in his early years.  This second career stretched on longer than the first, ending with his death in 2013, but remains largely unknown to the wider public.  

Throughout this second career, among his closest collaborators was percussionist and bandleader Adam Rudolph.  Adam will share personal stories and first-hand insights from his years with this master musician.  Join host Mitch Goldman for a rebroadcast of this Deep Focus from 2019. 

#WKCR #DeepFocus #AdamRudolph #YusefLateef #MitchGoldman #JazzAlternatives #JazzRadio #JazzInterview #Jazz

The lineage: you are required to know everything that has come before you but you are also required, when in the act of creation, to let that all go and simply be present in the moment. That is the way Milford Graves does it (and has done it since he played drums with our avatar Albert Ayler in the Sixties) and that is the way drummer William Hooker does it. Rare live recordings, first-hand insights and you.