Musical tribute planned in honor of Yusef Lateef

Yusef Lateef

ormer students, colleagues and friends and other members of the Five College community will celebrate the life and music of Yusef Lateef at a free gala concert on Friday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Bowker Auditorium. Tickets are required and may be obtained through the Fine Arts Center Box Office (5-2511).

     Lateef, who earned his doctorate through the School of Education in 1975, taught at the Five Colleges for more than 14 years, the last two as Five College Distinguished Professor of Music. He retired from teaching last spring.

     What he'll miss most, Lateef said, is watching his students develop. "It's like watching a flower grow. I tell them to have an open mind - to explore all the possibilities of life."
In tribute to Lateef the teacher, the concert will feature performances by a number of his former students, who will be joined by their mentor and his ensemble. The Inner Orchestra and Julian Valard will also perform.

     Born William Evans in Chattanoga, Tenn., Lateef grew up in Detroit and began on tenor when he was 17. He played with Lucky Millinder, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie's big band, and was a fixture on the Detroit jazz scene of the 1950s. He studied flute at Wayne State University and oboe with Ronald Odemark of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

     Lateef began recording as a leader in 1955 for Savoy (and later Riverside and Prestige), then moved to New York in 1959. There he received his B.M., and master's in music education at the Manhattan School of Music. By then he already had a strong reputation for his deep understanding of the blues and for his interest in incorporating non-western scales and instruments into his work. Lateef played with Charles Mingus, gig-ged with Donald Byrd and was featured with the Cannonball Adderley Sextet. Lateef's string of Impulse recordings in the mid-1960s are considered among the finest of his career. His Atlantic sessions had some equally strong music and introduced Yusef to a new audience. Lateef was a senior research fellow from 1981-85 at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, where he did research into the Fulani flute.

     Since the late 1980s, Lateef's own YAL label has released 23 well-received recordings, including "The Tenors of Yusef Lateef" and "Von Freeman." In 1987, he received a Grammy for his composition "Little Symphony."

     As a member of the theory department at the Manhattan School of Music, he taught autophysio-psychic music in 1971. From 1972-76 he was an associate professor of music at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

     He has performed several of his extended compositions with the Detroit Symphony, the Augusta Georgia Symphony and the Symphony of the New World. Lateef was commissioned to write for the Hamburg Germany Radio Orchestra, who premiered his work "Lalit" (a tone poem) in 1974. As an instrumentalist with his own ensemble he has performed extensively in many of the colleges throughout America and also in Europe, Japan and Africa.

     He was commissioned to write for the Cologne Germany radio Orchestra, who premiered his "African American Epic Suite" for Quintet and Orchestra in 1993.

     Last November, Lateef received an International Achievement Award from ArtServe Michigan, an alliance of arts educators, artists, volunteers and cultural advocates. The award honored his lifelong contributions to music.

     The concert is sponsored by Five Colleges, Inc., Hampshire College and the University.