Yusef Lateef

An acclaimed jazz musician and composer who broke boundaries, crossed cultures and melded genres, Yusef Lateef created "world music" before it was even a recognised term and went on to win a Grammy Award. Born William Emanuel Huddleston and raised in Ohio, he cut his teeth as a saxophone player in swing bands in the 1940s and toured with Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra before converting to Islam in 1950, when he changed his name to Yusef Lateef. His debut album The Sounds Of Yusef (1957) was full of lively be-bop jazz, but he developed his sound to include influences he'd experienced while making pilgrimages to Mecca. The albums Prayer To The East (1957), Into Something (1961) and Eastern Sounds (1961) proved a ground-breaking fusion of American, Middle Eastern, African and even Chinese styles. A multi-instrumentalist who played flute, oboe and bassoon as well as tenor sax, Lateef described his sound as "autophysiopsychic music" and won a Grammy Award for his record Little Symphony (1987) in the category of Best New Age Album. In later life he founded the label YAL Records and taught at the University of Massachusetts until his death in 2013 from prostate cancer aged 93.

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