This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010)

Academic robes

A robe is a loose-fitting outer garment. A robe is distinguished from a cape or cloak by the fact that it usually has sleeves. The English word robe derives from Middle English robe ("garment"), borrowed from Old French robe ("booty, spoils"), itself taken from the Frankish word *rouba ("spoils, things stolen, clothes"), and is related to the word rob. There are various types of robes, including:

• A gown worn as part of the academic regalia of faculty or students, especially for ceremonial occasions, such as a convocations, congregations or graduations.

• A gown worn as part of the attire of a judge or barrister.

• A wide variety of long, flowing religious dress including pulpit robes and the robes worn by various types of monks.

• A gown worn as part of the official dress of a peer or royalty.

• Any of several women's fashions, as robe d'anglaise (18th century), "robe de style" (1920s).

• A gown worn in fantasy literature and role-playing games by wizards and other magical characters.

• An absorbent "bath robe" worn mostly after washing or swimming.
  • One such example is a bathrobe, a garment made of terrycloth or another towel-like material and is typically worn at home after a bath or other activities where the wearer is nude to keep warm and/or preserve modesty in times of no immediate need to fully dress. (Also called a house coat.) See, for example, that worn by the fictional character Arthur Dent.
• (Informal usage) Any long flowing garment; for example, a cassock is sometimes called a robe, despite the fact that the cassock is close-fitting.

See also[link]

• Abaya
• Kaftan
• Academic stole
• Clothing
• Seamless robe of Jesus - Biblical relic
• Senegalese kaftan
• The Robe - film
• Black Robe - film about a robed Jesuit priest
• Tricivara - Buddhist monastic robe

Wes King (born January 20, 1966), born in Winder, Georgia, is an American contemporary-Christian singer, songwriter, and musician. He is perhaps best known for his 1993 album The Robe. For a very brief period in the late 1980s, he attended Covenant College outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He also led worship at Christian youth retreat camps.

In 2005, King was diagnosed with lymphoma, and the tribute album Life Is Precious: A Wes King Tribute was released in July 2006 to raise money for his medical expenses (link below). This album's artists range from Addison Road to Derek Webb. King and his wife, Fran (the sister of former U.S. Congresswoman Katherine Harris), have three children.

As of 2006, King had received measurable results from aggressive chemotherapy. In an interview when asked what was next, he responded that he would have to see what the Lord has for him and that he wanted to be obedient and proactive for God's kingdom. He stated that he wishes use his gifts for God's glory. "I don't equate fulfilling God's purpose in life by selling a certain amount of records, so I'm ready for whatever he has for me."

Wes King is recovering at home from his chemo treatments and he is gaining strength daily. He is spending time with his family and spending as much time as he can in his home studio.

Discography[link]

• 1987: The Lonely Poet (released on tape and available for donation to cover medical expenses)
• 1990: The Ultimate Underlying No Denying Motivation (Reunion Records)
• 1991: Sticks and Stones
• 1993: The Robe
• 1995: Common Creed
• 1997: A Room Full of Stories (Sparrow Records)
• 2001: What Matters Most

Tributes[link]

• 2005: Life Is Precious: A Wes King Tribute http://www.wesking.com/news.html

References[link]

• Powell, Mark Allan (2002). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (First printing ed.). Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 488–489. ISBN 1-56563-679-1. 
• Andy Argyrakis (2006-03-13). "Return of the King". Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/interviews/2006/wesking-0306.html. Retrieved 2009-03-30. 

External links[link]

• Wes King discography at MusicBrainz

This article about a United States singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This Christian music-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Yusef Lateef
Background information
Birth name	William Emanuel Huddleston
Born	(1920-10-09) October 9, 1920 (age 91) Chattanooga, Tennessee United States
Genres	New Age music, jazz, jazz fusion, swing, autophysiopsychic music
Occupations	Musician, author
Instruments	Tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, bassoon, bamboo flute, shehnai, shofar, arghul, koto
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Savoy, Prestige, Verve, Riverside, Impulse, Atlantic, CTI, YAL Records
Associated acts	Cannonball Adderley, Elvin Jones, Adam Rudolph
Website	Yusef Lateef.com

Yusef Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920) is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.

Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he also plays oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also uses a number of world music instruments, notably the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, arghul, sarewa, and koto. He is known for his innovative blending of jazz with "Eastern" music.

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee; his family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1925.

Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones, and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Lateef was a proficient saxophonist by the time of his graduation from high school at the age of 18, when he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands.

In 1949, he was invited by Dizzy Gillespie to tour with his orchestra. At this time, Lateef was known as William Evans, thereby making him one of notable jazz musicians sharing the same name, the other two being pianist Bill Evans and Bill Evans the tenor saxophonist.

In 1950, Lateef returned to Detroit and began his studies in composition and flute at Wayne State University. It was during this period that he converted to Islam as a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Prominence[link]

Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association which continued until 1959; the earliest of Lateef's album's for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap with them. Musicians such as Wilbur Harden and Hugh Lawson were among his collaborators during this period.

By 1961, with the recording of Into Something and Eastern Sounds, Lateef's dominant presence within a group context had emerged. His 'Eastern' influences are clearly audible in all of these recordings, with spots for instruments like the rahab, shanai, arghul, koto and a collection of Chinese wooden flutes and bells along with his tenor and flute. Even his use of the western oboe sounds exotic in this context; it is not a standard jazz instrument. Indeed the tunes themselves are a mixture of jazz standards, blues and film music usually performed with a piano/bass/drums rhythm section in support. Along with trumpeter Don Cherry, Lateef can lay claim to being among the first exponents of the world music as subgenres of jazz. Lateef also made numerous contributions to other people's albums including his time as a member of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's Quintet during 1962-64.

Lateef's sound has been claimed to have been a major influence on the saxophonist John Coltrane, whose later period free jazz recordings contain similarly 'Eastern' traits. For a time (1963–66) Lateef was signed to Coltrane's label, Impulse. He had a regular working group during this period, with trumpeter Richard Williams and Mike Nock on piano. They enjoyed a residency at Pep's Lounge during June 1964; an evening of which was issued across several albums.

In the late 1960s he began to incorporate contemporary soul and gospel phrasing into his music, still with a strong blues underlay, on albums such as Detroit and Hush'n'Thunder.

Lateef has expressed a dislike of the terms "jazz" and "jazz musician" as musical generalizations. As is so often the case with such generalizations, the use of these terms do understate the breadth of his sound. For example, in the 1980s, Lateef experimented with new age and spiritual elements. His 1987 album Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.^[1] His core influences, however, are clearly rooted in jazz, and in his own words: "My music is jazz."^[2]

In 1992, Lateef founded YAL Records, his own label for which he records today. In 1993, Lateef was commissioned by the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne to compose The African American Epic Suite, a four part work for orchestra and quartet based on themes of slavery and disfranchisement in the United States. The piece has since been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Education and teaching[link]

Lateef performing in Hamburg, 1971

In 1960, Lateef again returned to school, studying flute at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Music in 1969 and a Master's Degree in Music Education in 1970. Starting in 1971, he taught courses in autophysiopsychic music at the Manhattan School of Music, and he became an associate professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1972.

In 1975, Lateef completed his dissertation on Western and Islamic education and earned a Ed.D. in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

In the early 1980s Lateef was a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at Ahmadu Bello University in the city of Zaria, Nigeria. Returning to the US in 1986 he took teaching positions at the University of Massachusetts and Amherst College. Presently, he continues to teach at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hampshire College in western Massachusetts.

Lateef has written and published a number of books including two novellas entitled A Night in the Garden of Love and Another Avenue, the short story collections Spheres and Rain Shapes, also his autobiography, The Gentle Giant, written in collaboration with Herb Boyd.^[3]

Along with his record label YAL Records, Lateef owns Fana Music, a music publishing company. Lateef publishes his own work through Fana, which includes Yusef Lateef's Flute Book of the Blues and many of his own orchestral compositions.

Autophysiopsychic Music, Lateef's term, refers to music which comes from one's physical, mental, and spiritual self. Lateef has written extensively on the topic and includes it in his book Method To Perform Autophysiopsychic Music. In this view, it should be the goal of every musician to combine their theoretical knowledge with their life experience, and to offer to and accept knowledge from their personal source of strength, inspiration and knowledge.

Yusef's teaching of this music is very simple. It strays from what has become the standard dorian scale over the two chord, mixolydian over the five, and ionian over the one chord. You learn what works for you, and you embellish those notes.^{[citation needed]}

Awards and honors[link]

In 2010 he received lifetime the Jazz Master Fellowship Award from NEA, National Endowment for the Arts which is an independent federal agency.^[4]

National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters is the highest honor given in Jazz established in 1982.^[5]

WGBH Jazz, a popular public radio from Boston, Massachusetts, aired a special-documentary program for Lateef, titled A portrait of saxophonist Yusef Lateef in his own words and music.^[6]

Discography[link]

Lateef performing in 2007 at the Detroit Jazz Festival

As leader[link]

• The Sounds of Yusef (1957)
• Other Sounds (1957)
• Jazz Mood (1957)
• Prayer to the East (1957)
• Cry! - Tender (1959)
• Contemplation (1960)
• The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef (1960, Riverside Records)
• The Centaur and the Phoenix (1961, Riverside)
• Into Something (1961)
• Eastern Sounds (1961)
• Jazz 'Round the World (1963, Impulse!)
• Live at Pep's (1964, Impulse!)
• Psychicemotus (1965, Impulse!)
• A Flat, G Flat and C (1966, Impulse!)
• The Golden Flute (1966, Impulse!)
• 1984 (1966, Impulse!)
• The Blue Yusef Lateef (1968) - Kenny Burrell, Blue Mitchell, Roy Brooks and Cecil McBee
• The Complete Yusef Lateef (1968, Atlantic)
• Yusef Lateef's Detroit (1969)
• The Diverse Yusef Lateef (1970)
• Hush 'N' Thunder (1972)
• The Gentle Giant (1972)
• Part of the Search (1974)
• The Doctor is In... And Out (1974)
• Ten Years Hence (1975)
• Every Village Has a Song (1976)
• Autophysiopsychic (1977, CTI Records)
• In a Temple Garden (1979, CTI Records)
• Yusef's Bag (1981, Prestige)
• Concerto for Yusef Lateef (1986)
• Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony (1987, Atlantic)
• Yusef Lateef's Encounters (1991, Atlantic)
• The World at Peace (1997)
• Beyond the Sky (2000)
• Go: Organic Orchestra: In the Garden (2003)
• The Doctor is In and Out (2005)
• Nocturnes (2005)
• The Complete Yusef Lateef (2005)
• The Blue Yusef Lateef (2005)
• Influence with Lionel and Stéphane Belmondo (2005)
• 10 Years Hence (2008)
• Roots Run Deep (2012, Rogue Art)

As sideman[link]

With Art Farmer

• Something You Got CTI, 1977)

With Curtis Fuller

• Images of Curtis Fuller (1960; Savoy Records)

With Grant Green

• Grantstand (1961; Blue Note)

With Cannonball Adderley

• The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York (1962; Riverside)
• Cannonball in Europe! (1962; Riverside)
• Jazz Workshop Revisited (1962; Riverside)
• Autumn Leaves (1963; Riverside)
• Nippon Soul (1963; Riverside)

With Leon Redbone

• Double Time on the track "Mississippi Delta Blues" (1976; Warner Bros. Records)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yusef Lateef

• Official website of Yusef Lateef
• Yusef Lateef at Allmusic
• Billboard Discography - Billboard's complete discography of Yusef Lateef
• Jazz Portraits from the WGBH Archives: Yusef Lateef a radio documentary from WGBH Radio Boston

Victor Mature
from the trailer for Kiss of Death (1947)
Born	Victor John Mature (1913-01-29)January 29, 1913 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	August 4, 1999(1999-08-04) (aged 86) Rancho Santa Fe, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1939–84
Spouse	Frances Charles (m. 1938–1940) «start: (1938)–end+1: (1941)»"Marriage: Frances Charles to Victor Mature" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Victor_Mature) Martha Stephenson Kemp (m. 1941–1943) «start: (1941)–end+1: (1944)»"Marriage: Martha Stephenson Kemp to Victor Mature" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Victor_Mature) Dorothy Standford Berry (m. 1948–1955) «start: (1948)–end+1: (1956)»"Marriage: Dorothy Standford Berry to Victor Mature" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Victor_Mature) Adrienne Joy Urwick (m. 1959–1969) «start: (1959)–end+1: (1970)»"Marriage: Adrienne Joy Urwick to Victor Mature" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Victor_Mature) Loretta G. Sebena (m. 1974–1999) «start: (1974)–end+1: (2000)»"Marriage: Loretta G. Sebena to Victor Mature" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Victor_Mature)

Victor John Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American stage, film and television actor.

Early life[link]

Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, was an Italian-speaking immigrant from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol (now Trentino in Italy, at that time Austrian-Hungarian Empire);^[1][2] he was a cutler. His mother, Clara P. (Ackley), was Kentucky-born and of Swiss heritage.^[3] An older brother, Marcellus Paul Mature, died at 11 in 1918 from osteomyelitis.^[4] Victor Mature was educated at parochial schools, the Kentucky Military Institute and the Spencerian Business School. He briefly sold candy and operated a restaurant before moving to California.^[5]

Discovered while on stage at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, his first leading role was as a fur-clad caveman in One Million B.C. (1940), after which he joined 20th Century Fox to star opposite actresses such as Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth.^[6]

World War II[link]

In July 1942 Mature attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was rejected for color blindness. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard after taking a different eye test the same day. He was assigned to the USCGC Storis, which was doing Greenland patrol work. After 14 months aboard the Storis, Mature was promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate. In 1944 he did a series of War Bond tours and acted in morale shows. He assisted Coast Guard recruiting efforts by being a featured player in the musical revue "Tars and Spars" which opened in Miami, Florida in April 1944 and toured the United States for the next year. In May 1945 Mature was reassigned to the Coast Guard manned troop transport USS Admiral H. T. Mayo which was involved in transferring troops to the Pacific Theater. Mature was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in November 1945 and he resumed his acting career.^[5]

Film career[link]

Victor Mature in the trailer for Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

After the war, Mature was cast by John Ford in My Darling Clementine, playing Doc Holliday opposite Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp. For the next decade, Mature settled into playing hard-boiled characters in a range of genres such as film noir, Westerns, and Biblical motion pictures like The Robe (with Richard Burton and Jean Simmons) and its sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators (with Susan Hayward). Mature also starred with Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epic, Samson and Delilah (1949) and as Horemheb in The Egyptian (1954) with Jean Simmons and Gene Tierney. He reportedly stated he was successful in Biblical epics because he could "make with the holy look".

He also starred with Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and, according to her autobiography, had a romantic relationship with her.^[7]

After five years of retirement, he was lured back into acting by the opportunity to parody himself in After the Fox (1966), co-written by Neil Simon. Mature played "Tony Powell", an aging American actor who is living off of his reputation from his earlier body of work. In a similar vein in 1968 he played a giant, The Big Victor, in Head, a potpourri movie starring The Monkees. The character poked fun at both his screen image and, reportedly, RCA Victor who distributed Colgems Records, the Monkees's label. Mature enjoyed the script while admitting it made no sense to him, stating "All I know is it makes me laugh."

Mature was famously self-deprecatory about his acting skills. Once, after being rejected for membership in a country club because he was an actor, he cracked, "I'm not an actor — and I've got sixty-four films to prove it!"^[8] He was quoted in 1968 on his acting career: "Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics."^[9]

Death[link]

Victor Mature died of leukemia in 1999, at his Rancho Santa Fe, California home, at the age of 86. He was buried in the family plot at St. Michael's Cemetery in his hometown of Louisville.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Victor Mature has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6780 Hollywood Blvd.

Selected filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Victor Mature

• Victor Mature at the Internet Movie Database
• Victor Mature at the Internet Broadway Database

• Mature's Matinee - The Victor Mature Fan Club and Website