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Yusef Lateef

1920–2013

United States

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Biography

Yusef Abdul Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920 – December 23, 2013) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Community in the United States. Although Lateef's main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, he also played oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shehnai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto. He is known for having been an innovator in the blending of jazz with "Eastern" music.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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