Jazz Man Yusef Lateef, Who Embraced World Music, Dies at 93

In 2010, he was named an NEA Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor.

Lateef had an international following and toured extensively in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Africa. He most recently toured last summer.

He held a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in music education from the Manhattan School of Music, and from 1987 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, from which he was awarded a doctorate in education.

He created his own music theory called Autophysiopsychic Music, which he described in the NEA interview as “music from one’s physical, mental and spiritual self, and also from the heart.”

Born William Emanuel Huddleston in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1920, Lateef moved with his family to Detroit five years later. He became acquainted with many top musicians who were part of Detroit’s active music scene, and by age 18, he was touring professionally with swing bands led by Lucky Millinder, Roy Eldridge, Hot Lips Page and Ernie Fields.

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