Yusef Lateef's Autophysiopsychic Quest

Yusef Lateef’s Autophysiopsychic Quest Ingrid Monson Abstract: Yusef Lateef’s neologism for jazz was autophysiopsychic, meaning “music from one’s physical, mental and spiritual self.” Lateef condensed in this term a very considered conception linking the intellectual and the spiritual based in his faith as an Ahmadiyya Muslim and his lifelong commitment Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/148/2/104/1831417/daed_a_01746.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 to both Western and non-Western intellectual explorations. Lateef’s distinctive voice as an improviser is traced with respect to his autophysiopsychic exploration of world instruments including flutes, double reeds, and chordophones, and his friendship with John Coltrane. The two shared a love of spiritual exploration as well as the study of science, physics, symmetry, and mathematics. Lateef’s ethnomusicological research on Hausa music in Nigeria, as well as his other writings and visual art, deepen our un- derstanding of him as an artist-scholar who cleared the way for the presence of autophysiopsychic musicians in the academy. It is no secret that the use of the word “jazz” to describe the canonic music we associate with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane has long been contest- ed. The “J-word,” which, according to many, be- gan as sexual slang, has been viewed as a market- ing category, a white-perpetuated label to place African American music in a box, and a term that through its voyeuristic association with illicit ac- tivities became racially offensive. Duke Ellington found it a category he did not want to be associat- ed with, a feeling shared by musicians across many generations from Charles Mingus and Max Roach ingrid monson is the Quin- cy Jones Professor of African to Nicholas Payton and Muhal Richard Abrams. American Music at Harvard Uni- Yusef Lateef was among those who objected to the versity. She is the author of Free- word.1 Lateef’s word to describe this music was dom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out autophysiopsychic. to Jazz and Africa (2007), The Af- rican Diaspora: A Musical Per- I call my music autophysiopsychic music. This word spective (2000), and Saying Some- means music from one’s physical, spiritual and men- thing: Jazz Improvisation and Inter- tal self: i.e., music from the heart. In other words, action (1996). my music is a conduit whereby and through which © 2019 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_01746 104 Providence may reveal some of the beau- Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Char- Ingrid ties of creation to the ears of those who lis- lie Parker, he was an intellectual as well Monson ten with their ears and their hearts.2 as a musician. Yusef Lateef was an artist- scholar of the kind that academia now Lateef’s word autophysiopsychic crys- welcomes, yet he had to wait until he was talizes a deep aesthetic, psychological, sixty-eight years old for his first full-time and ethical philosophy that lay at the academic post.3 Lateef’s view of the inter- center of his life as a musician, compos- relationship between music, intellect, and er, Muslim, writer, visual artist, and pro- humane development has much to tell us fessor. In this essay, I first explore Lateef’s about why this music still matters. musical and psychological concept of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/148/2/104/1831417/daed_a_01746.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 autophysiopsychic as well as its relation- Yusef Abdul Lateef’s deepest discussion ship to Ahmadiyya Islamic understand- of the idea of autophysiopsychic music ings of spiritual development through is found in his essay “The Pleasures of knowledge and religious practice. Islam- the Voice in Autophysiopsychic Music.” ic ideas linking the physical, intellectu- Here Lateef attempts to describe the link- al, and spiritual lie at the very center of age between the character and person- his neologism, while its musical prac- ality of the musician and the emotion- tice links his vision to compatible West- al quality of the music created by him or ern and African American understand- her. Creating autophysiopsychic music, ings of acquiring an authentic, warm, in his view, requires three kinds of voice: and humane musical voice. Lateef wrote the audible voice, the dramatic voice, and about the term autophysiopsychic late in the artist’s own voice. his life, after having led a distinguished Sounds with audible voice give us the sense career as a bandleader, composer, and of a sound coming from the whole being of sideman. the musician–; and they touch us–they I then trace Lateef’s development of his seem to give us energy, or a sensation, rath- personal voice and friendship with John er than requiring energy to listen.4 Coltrane, as well as his wide-ranging intellectual explorations of music, mathe- To this he contrasts with “inaudible matics, science, philosophy, organology, voice,” or a person whose concern with and his self-taught ethnomusicological other things, such as technique, may study of Hausa flute playing in Nigeria. stand in the way of communicating his or Throughout his life he pursued educa- her humanity. tion in colleges and universities, includ- Valid presenters use their technique, only ing Wayne State University, Manhattan to project their character, their vast array School of Music, and the University of of experiences, thoughts, feelings, con- Massachusetts Amherst, while simulta- cerns and ideas that are entombed in their neously engaging deeply in Islamic study brain’s memory–and more than that–I through the Ahmadiyya branch of Is- will say: they speak with their heart.5 lam, which he joined in 1948. In 1988, he became a professor at the University of The musician who successfully creates Massachusetts Amherst, part of the Five an audible voice has the ability to “trans- Colleges, where he taught until his retire- form the events of their mind and heart ment in 2002. Yusef Lateef was a lifelong into sound,” a process that he says is autodidact who followed his interests to “not unlike elegant rational scientists– wherever they led. Like John Coltrane, they only operate with deeply different 148 (2) Spring 2019 105 Yusef Lateef’s grammars.” The heart, as Lateef notes, is be heard in “Yusef’s Mood” from 1957.9 Autophysio- “the seat of the intellect.”6 As we will see, Lateef’s own develop- psychic Quest When “the sound of the music seems to ment of his personal voice can be chart- tell us what kind of person is playing” the ed through his exploration of the flute, autophysiopsychic musician has achieved the oboe, and non-Western instruments a dramatic voice. The listener is drawn of many kinds. closer to the personality of the musician, who seems to project a character respon- In joining the Ahmadiyya Movement in sible for the sound. Throughout this essay, 1948, Lateef entered an Islamic commu- Lateef takes Lester Young as an example nity that had attracted many other mu- of what he means by his autophysiopsy- sicians of the bebop era, including Art Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/148/2/104/1831417/daed_a_01746.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 chic ideal. “When listening to his music,” Blakey, Ahmad Jamal, Dakota Staton, Sa- he noted, “your ear will tell you that his hib Shihab, and Idrees Sulieman, among character was warm and sensitive.”7 others. The Ahmadis practice an inclu- For Lateef, the development of one’s sive multiracial form of Islam that stress- own voice was an achieved (rather than es finding peace by following the path of natural) quality that linked the explora- God (Allah) and Islamic education.10 In tion of musical craft to the development the 1920s, members of the Ahmadiyya of personal character. He explained Les- Movement published the first English ter Young’s musical voice as follows: translation of the Qur’an available in the He could treat notes so as to indicate assur- United States. Although their first pros- ance, by rapidly dropping the pitch, or in- elytizer, Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, indicate incompleteness by leveling the pitch tended to proselytize among all U.S. eth- in a manner which would suggest contin- nic groups, his own problems as a South uation, or when he thought it appropriate Asian in Jim Crow America led him to he would avoid traditional tones, by apply- concentrate on African Americans. The ing innovative fingerings, whereby he pro- Ahmadis in their early years were closely duced a new genre of sound textures. In allied with Marcus Garvey’s United Ne- conjunction with the sound textures that gro Improvement Association, but their he introduced let me say that: as a tone lan- insistence that whites as well as African guage uses changes in pitch to indicate dif- Americans were welcome in their com- ferences in the meanings of words–Les- munity put them at odds with other Is- ter used changes of texture, pitch and nu- lamic groups supporting black national- ance, tempered by his immaterial self, to ism. The Ahmadis, because they believe indicate differences in feelings or to put the their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to audience into a certain frame of mind. be the Mahdi sent to reform Islam to its He never sounded as though he was con- true meaning, are considered to be her- fronted with an ambivalence in deciding etics and non-Muslims by many main- what was central to his message–always stream Muslim sects, despite their full observance of the pillars of Islam and convincing, authentic, and the logos, the 11 proof, or apparent proof of his artistry was practices of Islamic education.

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