Early life and career Lateef was born in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, as William Emanuel Huddleston. His family moved, in 1923, to
Lorain, Ohio, and again in 1925, to
Detroit, Michigan, where his father changed the family's name to Evans. Throughout his early life, Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who gained prominence, including vibraphonist
Milt Jackson, bassist
Paul Chambers, drummer
Elvin Jones and guitarist
Kenny Burrell. Lateef was a proficient saxophonist by the time of his graduation from high school at the age of 18, when he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of
swing bands. The first instrument he bought was an alto saxophone but after a year he switched to the tenor saxophone, influenced by the playing of
Lester Young. In 1949, he was invited by
Dizzy Gillespie to tour with his orchestra. In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began his studies in
composition and flute at
Wayne State University. It was during this period that he converted to
Islam as a member of the
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and changed his name. He twice made the pilgrimage to
Mecca.
Prominence Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for
Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association which continued until 1959; the earliest of Lateef's album's for the
Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap with them. Musicians such as
Wilbur Harden (trumpet, flugelhorn), bassist
Herman Wright, drummer
Frank Gant, and pianist
Hugh Lawson were among his collaborators during this period. In 1960, they played an extended gig at the Minor Key, a non-alcoholic club at Dexter and Burlingame in Detroit. By 1961, with the recording of
Into Something and
Eastern Sounds, Lateef's dominant presence within a group context had emerged. His "Eastern" influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings, with spots for instruments like the rahab,
shanai,
arghul,
koto and a collection of
Chinese wooden flutes and
bells along with his tenor and flute. Even his use of the western
oboe sounds exotic in this context; it is not a standard jazz instrument. Indeed, the tunes themselves are a mixture of jazz standards, blues and film music usually performed with a piano/bass/drums rhythm section in support. Lateef made numerous contributions to other people's albums, including during his period as a member of saxophonist
Cannonball Adderley's Quintet during 1962–64. In the late 1960s, he began to incorporate
contemporary soul and
gospel phrasing into his music (albeit with a strong blues underlay) on albums such as
Detroit and ''
Hush 'N' Thunder'', presaging the emergence of
jazz fusion. Lateef expressed a dislike of the terms "jazz" and "jazz musician" as musical generalizations. As is so often the case with such generalizations, the use of these terms does understate the breadth of his sound. In the 1980s, Lateef experimented with
new-age and spiritual elements. In 1960, Lateef returned to school, studying flute at the
Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He received a
bachelor's degree in music in 1969 and a master's degree in
music education in 1970. Starting in 1971, he taught courses in "autophysiopsychic music" at the Manhattan School of Music, and he became an
associate professor at the
Borough of Manhattan Community College. In 1975, Lateef received an
Ed.D. from the
University of Massachusetts Amherst; his dissertation was a comparative study of Western and Islamic education. Thereafter, he served as a senior research fellow at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at
Ahmadu Bello University throughout the early 1980s. Returning to the United States in 1986, he took a joint faculty appointment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and
Hampshire College.
Later career His 1987 album ''
Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony'' won the
Grammy Award for Best New Age Recording In 1992, Lateef founded YAL Records. In 1993, he was commissioned by the
WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne to compose
The African American Epic Suite, a four-part work for orchestra and quartet, based on themes of
slavery and
disfranchisement in the United States. The piece has since been performed by the
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In 2005, Nicolas Humbert & Werner Penzel, directors of
Step Across The Border, filmed Brother Yusef, in his wooden house in the middle of a forest in Massachusetts. In 2010, he received the lifetime
Jazz Master Fellowship Award from the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent federal agency. Established in 1982, the
National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award is the highest honor given in jazz. The Manhattan School of Music, where Lateef had earned a bachelor's and a master's degree, awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012. His last albums were recorded for
Adam Rudolph's Meta Records. To the end of his life, Lateef continued to teach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,
Smith College, and Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. Lateef died of prostate cancer on the morning of December 23, 2013, at the age of 93, survived by his wife, Ayesha, and son, Yusef. Following his death, Lateef's family auctioned off many of his instruments, in the hopes that they would continue to be played. Woodwind player
Jeff Coffin purchased Lateef's main tenor saxophone, as well as his
bass flute. In October 2020, the UMass Fine Arts Center celebrated the centenary of Lateef's birth by producing "Yusef Lateef: A Centenary Celebration", a major online exhibit of his work curated by Glenn Siegel and others. The centenary includes "100 Responses to Yusef Lateef", a series of video tributes by many prominent artists and former Lateef collaborators and students. ==Discography==