The French orchestra Belmondo and the 85-year-old American flautist and woodwind player Yusef Lateef present Third Stream, a style that mixes classical music and modern jazz. Belmondo is the orchestra of the brothers Lionel (soprano sax, flute, clarinet) and Stéphane (trumpet, flugelhorn) Belmondo. With an instrumentation, including a-typical jazz instruments like hobo, bassoon, French horn and tuba, they executed compositions by early 20th century composers like Boulanger, Fauré and Ravel on their CD Hymne au Soleil. The fact that they approached the American jazz legend Yusef Lateef (born Bill Evans, but converted to Islam) for their latest CD, isn't as strange as it seems. Lateef also wrote Third-Stream compositions and played besides tenor sax and flute also bassoon. Further more the founding father of world music mastered many exotic wind instruments. In the French music world the Influence album was the talk of the town. Not only the music press, but also the national daily papers broadly covered this miraculously beautiful CD.
