Yusef Lateef’s music of the late 1950s was inflected with both the earthiness that grew out of his background in mainstream music and the exotica inspired by his growing interest in music of the Far East and Middle East. A tenor saxophonist of pungency and one of the great jazz flutists, Lateef also played such unusual reed instruments as the argol, the algaita, the sahnai, and a variety of bamboo flutes. Despite the elements of mysticism in some of the tracks from this 1957 recording, the music is fresh and accessible. The band, including the much admired flugelhornist Wilbur Harden, was one of Lateef’s best.

with Wilbur Harden, Hugh Lawson, Ernie Farrow, Oliver Jackson