Yusef Lateef: I remember one day, and I think this is significant, Sonny Stitt came to me, and he said, “Yusef, I can play.” Now, that’s the first time a musician has told me that he can play.
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YL: And he could, you see, he loved the saxophone, he loved to play the saxophone. I don’t think there was ever a time that I went to Sonny Stitt’s house and the instrument was in the case. It was always out. You know, so I experienced this type of dedication coming from other people in the environment.
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Nick Spitzer: What were you thinking, how were you identifying when the bebop world starts arriving with all this, sort of, playing with harmony, playing with melody, changing how people communicate? I mean, did you feel like, “Hey I’m advancing into a new land now”?
YL: Well you said it; it was advancing into a new land. Yeah I met Tadd Dameron. He said, “Come by the house, I’d like to show you some turnbacks.”
NS: What is a turnback?
YL: A turnback is a set of changes that you’ll find frequently in the last two measures of an ABA song form. No one talked about turnbacks before then to me. And he took a liking to me, and so I used to go by his house and practice turnbacks.
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YL: Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street. I used to stand there in the evening in the corner–I didn’t have any money at the time–and listen. Tadd Dameron was sitting at his table. He said, “Why don’t you go up and play something with them?” I had never thought of doing that. Charlie Parker and Dizzy, they let me play with them, play a couple of songs, what I wanted to play, and it was a new age.
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NS: Let me ask you a little bit about Dizzy Gillespie, whose personality is so huge. What were your first impressions of him and his music?
YL: As a human being he was a very warm person. When I was with that band, I took James Moody’s place, and we were going to play Detroit, and I was coming home, playing with the great Dizzy Gillespie. And I didn’t have an overcoat. It was wintertime; it was cold. He had one of those coats with–what do you call it?–a mouton lamb collar. And he said, “Take this coat, you can have it.” And he gave me that coat, and I was so grateful. On the intellectual side, I remember once that he told me that he could give a lesson, one lesson at Harvard in rhythm, and it would last the students a whole year.
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NS: Now, what was it like working with him on the bandstand?
YL: It was instructive, if you will. For example, I would be playing with the sax section, and we’d come to the end of a phrase. I would stop because the music had run out, you see. The other saxophones were still playing. That went on for close to two weeks, and finally I realized what they were doing. They would get to a phrase, and they’d be watching Dizzy Gillespie’s right arm. If he bent it towards the floor, the note would be going down [sings], and then if he’d go back up [sings], and then they would turn the note loose, but he was directing with his body physically. I had to see that for myself, that’s what I mean by being instructive.
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