Eastern Sounds


Eastern Sounds is an album by jazz saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, recorded in 1961. The album features Lateef's continued exploration of Middle Eastern music, which were incorporated into his version of hard bop with a quartet featuring Barry Harris on piano. The opening track features Lateef on Chinese globular flute, generally called xun. The fusing of musical genres was not a new thing in jazz or for Lateef as his 1957 album Prayer to the East incorporated the shehnai and Middle Eastern influences in playing jazz standards. Aside from Lateef's original compositions, there are covers of themes from the films Spartacus and The Robe, the last one being used as samples by Blockhead and Nujabes.

Track listing

  1. "The Plum Blossom" – 5:03
  2. "Blues for the Orient" – 5:40
  3. "Chinq Miau" – 3:20
  4. "Don't Blame Me" – 4:57
  5. "Love Theme from Spartacus" – 4:15
  6. "Snafu" – 5:42
  7. "Purple Flower" – 4:32
  8. "Love Theme from The Robe" – 4:02
  9. "The Three Faces of Balal" – 2:23

    Personnel