Search - Yusef Lateef :: Cry Tender

Beautiful and Fascinating

Jasper | New England | 12/03/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a phenomenal Yusaf Lateef set from the height of his golden age, and it is quite possibly his greatest LP.



This inspired 1959 effort was the first time that Yusef Lateef brought his oboe into the recording studio, and he uses it here to great effect, along with his masterful playing of flute and tenor sax. This is dark, lyrical music which explores Eastern sounds, and the full power of bop to be something beautiful - even mystical - while retaining a cultured, cosmopolitan air. While a number of tracks are essentially straight-ahead jazz, several use bop as a departure point from which to search for something softer and more otherworldly. This is not some sort of new-age garbage, however, and it is certainly not some corny excursion into easy-listening exotica. This is sophisticated, artful music, simultaneously spiritual and urbane, and it is supremely pleasing. There is a hushed, nocturnal quality to much of this work, and even some of the more swinging tracks such as "The Snow Is Green," are virtually aglow with a dreamlike elegance. A lively tune such as "Ecaps" might take us straight to the jazz club late on a Saturday night in 1959, but it retains the enchanting lustre which Lateef has given the entire program.



In 1961, Lateef would release the gorgeous LP "Eastern Sounds," which delves somewhat further into the use of exotic instruments and Eastern concepts, and even further away from bop. "Eastern Sounds" is Lateef's best-known recording. Cry!-Tender is not simply some stepping stone on the way to somewhere else, however, but a complete and fascinating vision all its own. I feel that Cry!-Tender is at least the equal of "Eastern Sounds," and I find it to be the more sophisticated and refined of the two. If you think that John Coltrane was the first to seriously venture from bop into Eastern music, you've got quite a wonderful surprise waiting for you with either title. If you want to hear bop imbued with an ethereal beauty, Cry!-Tender will be phenomenally rewarding.



Lonnie Hillyer - trumpet

Hugh Lawson - piano

Herman Wright - bass

Frank Gant - drums



Playing time is 37:10



If you enjoy this, you're in luck, as Lateef crafted a great number of excellent LPs around this time, including (but not limited to):



* "Jazz Mood" (1957)

* "Jazz For The Thinker" (1957)

*"Before Dawn" (1957)

*"The Last Savoy Sessions" (four 50s LPs: "The Dreamer," "Prayer to the East," "Jazz and the Sounds of Nature," and "The Fabric of Jazz")

*"Into Something" (1961)

*"The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef" (1962)



That's not all - there are other fine Lateef records, but I can honestly say that those I've listed are, for all intents and purposes, perfect works."