Sorry for cluttering up everybody's mailbox but I couldn't resist noting
a resonance with Dan's comments. As another 50 year old shakuhachi
student, it was most certainly listening to Trane, Yusef, Ornette,
Dolphy et. al. that opened up and prepared my ears for the bombshell of
first hearing Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky (experiences like that have
only happened a couple of times for me, e.g. hearing Purple Haze for the
first time). I commend Dan for "rescuing" himself re. having the
intuition to ask his mom to pick up "albums by black jazz players". In
this most multicultural of towns, San Francisco, I still had to be
"rescued" from Getz, Mulligan, Baker,... (all of whom I still love to
listen to) by a high school friend who turned me on to Trane - and as
they say, I've never looked back...
>
> My response is way off shakuhachi-issues --- but ---
> man does this open up deep memory traces of containing life-changing
> musical experiences with Yousef.
> I was 14 years old in 1964, wanted to learn to play jazz, but living
> in Dayton, OH (seriously segregated then and now), my mother asked me
> what I wanted for my birthday and I said "albums by black jazz
> players" - she had previously only bought me stuff by Brubeck and
> Mulligan etc. She went alone to the west side of town and bought me
> my first LP by Trane and Yousef - I memorized every slow blusey track
> on Yousef's records - even the tracks that sounded non-Western.
> (Coltrane was just too tough to imitate.) If it wasn't for Yousef,
> I'm sure that my recent interest in shakuhachi (now that I'm 50 years
> old) would never have taken root in such a profound and subtle way.
> Thank you Yousef.
>
> Dan Gutwein
> dfgutw@prodigy.net
>
> At 11:12 AM 9/16/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >> Back in my old DJ days (it's been over 30 years!) I remember
> >> playing a
> >> record (it was all vinyl back in those days ;*)> ) by Yousef
> >> Lateef in which
> >> he played some kind of Chinese horn... anyone have any idea what
> >> this was??
> >
> >
> > Which record are you referring to as he has released so much since
> > the 50's!? I have recently been doing a rather intensive study of
> > Dr. Lateef's music and dragging some of my shakuhachi students along
> > the trail with me.
> > On Eastern Sounds, a brilliant Lateef record from 1961 he is playing
> > a Chinese stone flute that sounds gorgeous.
> >
> > You can see more information about him at www.yuseflateef.com
> > He is now in his 80's, still a full professor at U. Massachusets and
> > still composing, performing and touring intensively! He will
> > actually be on the SanFrancisco Jazz festival in the next month or 2
> > which i am looking forward to.
> >
> > There is a very close connection between Lateef and Coltrane!! It
> > was Lateef who turned Coltrane onto many forms of "world music" back
> > in the late 50's which set Trane off in a very different direction
> > away from bebop and into modal forms and messing with Arabic and
> > other "eastern" scales/modes (Bruno Deschenes is going to jump on me
> > for using the term, scales here, LOL).
> >
> > Among many incredible publications that Dr Lateef has put out, there
> > are 2 i highly recomend for shakuhachi players who are interested in
> > thinking outside of the traditional shakuhachi box. One is a huge
> > book called "a repository of scales and melodic patterns" which is
> > an intensve study of different scales and modes from around the
> > world. The other is a book called "124 duets for treble clef
> > instruments" and many of those duets sound wonderful on shakuhachi.
> > My more advanced students are using these books along with their
> > honkyoku and sankyoku studies.
> >
> > I have recently added a couple of Lateef compositions to my solo
> > concert repetoire. Recently i have come to realize he is one of the
> > most important American composers, performers, educators and
> > theorists of our time.
> >
> > phil
> >
> > --
> > Philip Gelb
> > phil@philipgelb.com
> > http://www.philipgelb.com
> > ____________________________________________________
> >
> > <a
>
> Dan Gutwein, Associate Professor
> Department of Music
> College of William and Mary
> Williamsburg, VA 23185-8795
> office: (757) 221-1077, cell: (240) 481-2787
> fax. (757) 221-3171, email: dfgutw@wm.edu or dfgutw@prodigy.net
> homepage - http://www.wm.edu/CAS/music/gutwein
> Introduction to Electro-acoustic Music (MUS181) -
> http://www.wm.edu/CAS/music/gutwein/mus181.htm
> Shakuhachi Links by Category -
> http://www.wm.edu/CAS/music/gutwein/Shakuhachi/links.htm
> Zen Flute for Beginners -
> http://www.wm.edu/CAS/music/gutwein/Shakuhachi/WMshakuhachi.htm
-- Karl Young kyoung@slac.stanford.edu SLAC M/S 71 PO Box 20450 Stanford, CA 94309 650-926-3380 (voice) ____________________________________________________
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