Hidden Gem: Yusef Lateef and Doug Watkins - "Imagination!"
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Yusef Lateef with Doug Watkins • Imagination! • 1970 • Prestige Records
Recorded May 17, 1960 at Van Gelder Studio, New Jersey
The Tracks:
A1. One Guy
A2. Confessin’
A3. Soulnik
B1. Andre’s Bag
B2. I Remember You
B3. Imagination
The Players:
Yusef Lateef - Flute, Oboe
Doug Watkins - Cello
Hugh Lawson - Piano
Herman Wright - Bass
Lex Humphries - Drums
The Music:
This hidden gem of a record was originally released in 1960 as Soulnik and credited to “The Doug Watkins Quintet featuring Yusef Lateef” while this reissue - under a new title - finds the two musicians sharing the leadership mantle now, with Lateef getting the top billing. The decision is not surprising considering Watkins died tragically in a car accident in 1962, with only two releases as a leader, while by 1970 Lateef was a well known figure to the jazz buying public.
Most jazz fans are familiar with the work of Doug Watkins - whether they realize it or not - as he appeared on a slew of classic modern jazz recordings before his passing, most notably Sonny Rollins’ masterwork Saxophone Colossus, the all-star blowing session The Cats (often credited these days to Tommy Flanagan) and Horace Silver and The Jazz Messengers. He was seemingly everywhere in the 1950s jazz scene including on a few of my favorite recordings from that period including Jackie McLean’s 4, 5 and 6, Pepper Adams live 10 to 4 at the Five Spot and Hank Mobley’s classic Hank Mobley Quintet.
doug watkins with horace silver & hank mobley. photo © francis wolff
Yusef Lateef recorded a few classic hard bop sessions at the end of the 1950s, a time when he also started his creative journey of exploring many African and Middle Eastern sounds and instruments that were not common in jazz at the time. He would find most of his mainstream success after joining Impulse! in the mid-1960s, a time when he really came into his own and blossomed with his own unique take on the post bop sounds taking over the jazz scene at the time. If you’re unfamiliar with his recordings, they are all worth checking out, but I’d highly recommend starting with his early Riverside recordings and work you’re way up from there.
Surprisingly for a record this enjoyable - or maybe not considering the talent involved - Imagination! features the two main players on instruments other than their primary ones: Watkins on the cello and Lateef on flute and oboe. The resulting record still falls into the hard bop realm, but because of the lead instrumentation, the music has much more space than one might be accustomed to hearing on a modern jazz album. It’s not at all a negative, though, as it really gives the music some space to breathe amid the funky riffs and horn work that feels exactly right.
yusef lateef in 1973. photo by cecil lockard.
Apparently, this session was the first time that Watkins recorded with the cello, and to my ears there is not a ton of difference in the plucked sound from the more standard sound of the double bass (this does not take into account the massive amount of talent and confidence it takes a virtuoso on one instrument to pick up another so easily). It would have been interesting, had Watkins been around to record further, if he would have been able to make the cello a more popular instrument in the jazz world. As for Lateef on the flute and oboe, he is more than capable on both, and he uses the different pitches of the instruments to different effect depending on the song. Check out the flute on “One Guy“ versus the oboe on “Soulnik” below, both sound great in their own way, which is true of the music and musicians on the album as a whole.
Here is “One Guy” with Yusef Lateef on the flute:
And here is Lateef on the oboe on the title track:
The Vinyl:
Imagination! was originally issued in 1970 as part of the “Prestige Jazz Classics Series” which reissued earlier titles (the original Soulnik was released on the Prestige subsidary New Jazz). This pressing is on the purple “trident” label that was in use from roughly 1964 to 1971. The album was reissued again in 1972 with the same cover, this time with the lime green “trident” label that many collectors run from, but that I don’t find to be all that terrible.
Starting in 1974, the Japanese vinyl reissues went back to issuing the album as Soulnik again with the original cover and New Jazz label reproduction, as did the 1994 OJC compact disc release (making Imagination! very much a relic of where the jazz world was at as the seventies began). The original 1960 New Jazz pressing is obviously the most “collectible” version, but you’ll pay hundreds of dollars for that one in decent condition, while you should be able to score Imagination! in VG+ or better condition in the $10-$20 range. Well worth it if you’re a fan of classic hard bop, and a definite buy if you like your jazz heavy on the cello/bass side with a hefty dose of some funky flute and oboe.
The Videos:
Here is a super swinging video from 1958 featuring Zoot Sims playing “I’ll Remember April” using Donald Byrd’s rhythm section from the time consisting of Doug Watkins on the bass, Walter Davis on piano and Art Taylor on the drums:
And here is Yusef Lateef on the oboe from 1972 performing “In The Evening” with his quartet featuring Kenny Barron on Piano, Bob Cunningham on Bass and Albert Heath on the drums. It’s fantastic stuff:
