Wounded Bird Records
1975
10 Years Hence
About This Album
The bottom line is simply this: Ten Years Hence, originally released in 1975 on Atlantic as a double LP, is Yusef Lateef as you've never heard him before -- or since. This set was produced by Joel Dorn and recorded live at San Francisco's legendary Keystone Corner, with some other elements overdubbed later in the studio. The band is stellar: Yusef playing no less than eight instruments, Kenny Barron on piano and cowbell, upright bassist Bob Cunningham (who also plays percussion instruments), Albert "Kumba" Heath on drums and various percussion, and a lone track with Bill Salter on electric bass. The shortest tune here is eight and a half minutes, and it's no less a composition that Barron's classic tune "A Flower"; the rest are all 12 minutes and up -- there are only five tunes for four LP sides! The album kicks off with Cunningham's three-part suite "Samba de Amor." Clocking in at over 22 minutes, it begins as a spiritual percussion orgy with all bandmembers joining in. Lateef uses a shanir to get inside, but also uses it as a percussion instrument. Two minutes in, Cunningham is bowing his bass elegiacally, but the melody is sweet, like a lost, haunted love song.
Track List (try track 3)

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