With tracks names such as ‘The Plum Blossom’, ‘Blues For The Orient’, ‘Ching Miau’ and ‘The Purple Flower’, the influence of both nature and Eastern traditions is clear. What’s interesting is the use of non-western instruments such as the xun, also known as a Chinese globular flute, an ancient Chinese instrument which resembles a sort of egg-shaped ocarina, and the rabaab, a lute-like instrument from Central Afghanistan to see both these instruments feature on a jazz album was incredibly unusual for the time. On Eastern Sounds, we see Lateef on tenor sax, bamboo flute, oboe and xun, backed by Barry Harris on piano, Ernie Farrow on bass and percussion and Lex Humphries on drums. This began with Lateef exploring Middle Eastern music on his earlier album Prayer to the East (1957) and then further with Eastern Sounds. He was a pioneer in this respect and throughout his long and varied career often looked east for musical inspiration. Best known as a tenor sax and flute player, he also played oboe and bassoon, two instruments unusual in jazz, and a wide variety of non-western instruments. Yusef Lateef was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, author and educator. Consisting of originals and film theme covers, it is a perfect album from start to finish, moving through many colours, textures and styles. It is instead a beautiful modal gem, one that would probably be one of my desert island discs.

However, whilst Lateef’s Eastern Sounds has a definite mood and is easy to listen to, it would be a disservice to label it as merely ‘easy listening’. ‘Love Theme From Spartacus’ is from Lateef’s famous album Eastern Sounds, released in 1961 on Moodsville, a subsidiary label of Prestige records which was created to showcase ‘mood’ music or easy listening music which was particularly popular in the late 50s. The focus of today’s post will be on Yusef Lateef’s ‘Love Theme From Spartacus’ which like ‘La Nevada’, was also released in 1961. Our last post focussed on the cool ‘La Nevada’ by The Gil Evans Orchestra.

Spartacus love theme