While John Coltrane is often credited as the musician who sought out and introduced eastern tonalities to jazz, Yusef Lateef was way ahead of the curve. Recorded in 1961, one of the remarkable things about Eastern Sounds is how effortlessly Lateef incorporated these influences into a minimal and accessible setting. His oboe playing on Blues For The Orient slips from Arabian nights to uptown Manhattan and back again without skipping a beat, while the fact that a dinner party-friendly reading of The Theme From Spartacus can sit comfortably next to the proto-spiritual jazz of Purple Flower (Coltrane, Sun Ra et all taking notes) is testament to Lateef’s mastery.