Yusef Lateef - Yusef's Mood: Complete 1957 Sessions with Hugh Lawson / 4CD set

In 1950, after a year on tour with Dizzy Gillespies band, Yusef Lateef returned to Detroit, the city where he had grown up as a jazz musician. With his powerfully preaching tenor sax tone and fluent, driving style he established himself as an influential presence in the Motor City scene, forming his own quintet in 1955. He made his first recordings as a leader in 1957, a productive year for him, as this gripping 4-CD set reveals.

On it he plays tenor and flute with a compelling directness and overpowering honesty, surrounded by a nucleus of Detroiters like Curtis Fuller, Ernie Farrow, Louis Hayes, Oliver Jackson, Wilbur Harden and, especially, Hugh Lawson, whose rolling, two-handed piano is as exciting in solo as it is in his intelligent comping. The entire group plays in inspired fashion, speaking authoritatively for the Detroit jazz scene.

CD 1

01. Beauregard (Lateef) 3:36
02. OBlues (Lateef) 9:12
03. Happyology (Lateef) 11:16
04. Midday (Lateef) 7:54
05. Polarity (Lateef) 7:05
06. Ameena (Lateef) 7:09
07. Space (Lateef) 5:54
08. Metaphor (Lateef) 8:07
09. Morning (Lateef) 10:36
10. The Beginning (Lateef) 4:10

CD 2

01. G. Bouk (Lateef) 10:16
02. Blues In Space (Lateef) 7:06
03. Yusef's Mood (Lateef) 8:34
04. Passion (Lateef) 4:06
05. Love Is Eternal (Lateef) 6:32
06. Pikes Peak (Lateef) 5:32
07. Open Strings (Lateef) 6:16
08. Before Dawn (Lateef) 5:28
09. Twenty Five Minute Blues (Lateef) 5:29
10. Chang Chang Chang (Lateef) 2:59
11. Constellation (Parker) 4:49
12. Seulb (Harden) 6:14
13. Sounds Of Nature (Lateef) 3:47

CD 3

01. Song Of Delilah (Young-Livingstone-Evans) 8:22
02. 8540 Twelfth Street (Lateef) 4:25
03. I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good (Ellington) 6:20
04. Check Blues (Lateef) 6:40
05. Prayer To The East (Jackson) 8:18
06. A Night In Tunisia (Gillespie-Paparelli) 9:50
07. Lover Man (Davis-Ramirez-Sherman) 6:38
08. Endura (Lateef) 13:08
09. Love Dance (Baxter) 6:45
10. Sram (Harden) 5:37
11. Gypsy Arab (Harden) 3:26

CD 4

01. Playful Flute (Harden) 4:18
02. Taboo (Lecuona) 9:10
03. Ecaps (Lateef) 6:34
04. All Alone (Berlin) 5:06
05. Anastasia (Newman) 4:13
06. Love And Humour (Lateef) 6:13
07. Buckingham (Lateef) 5:10
08. Lamberts Point (Harden) 4:44
09. Meditation (Lateef) 4:43
10. Mahaba (Lateef) 3:50
11. Minor Mood (Lateef) 9:37
12. Take The 'A' Train (Strayhorn) 11:13

This collection includes the following albums:

"Stable Mates" (Savoy MG 12115)
"Jazz for the Thinker" (Savoy MG 12109)
"Jazz Mood" (Savoy MG 12103)
"Before Dawn" (Verve MG V8217)
"Jazz and the Sounds of Nature" (Savoy MG 12120)
"Prayer to the East" (Savoy MG 12117)
"Jazz is Busting Out All Over" (Savoy MG 12123)
"The Sounds of Yusef" (Prestige P 7122)
"Other Sounds" (New Jazz NJ 8218)
"Cry! Tender" (New Jazz NJ 8234)

Personnel:
Yusef Lateef (tenor sax, flute, vocals, assorted instruments), Curtis Fuller (trombone, tambourine, Turkish finger cymbals), Wilbur Harden (flugelhorn, tambourine), Hugh Lawson (piano, metalphone, ocarina), Ernie Farrow (bass, rebob), Louis Hayes (drums, cow bells), Oliver Jackson (drums, chinese gong).