Legendary tenor saxophonist, oboist, flutist and composer Yusef Lateef, whose 75-year odyssey in music took him from the bebop clubs of Detroit to the fields of Africa, the world of classical music and the halls of academia as a tenured professor, died Monday at his home in Amherst, Mass. He was 93.

Mr. Lateef’s death was confirmed by his wife, Ayesha, who said that he passed away after a short illness that took hold in September.

Mr. Lateef’s reputation in jazz was as broad as the shoulders of his towering frame. He gained notoriety as early as the 1950s in Detroit for his influential experiments with what would come to be known as “world music,” grafting the exotic instruments and influences of Africa and the Middle and Far East onto the trunk of modern jazz. His seminal embrace of Eastern scales would influence John Coltrane’s later innovations.

But the heart of Mr. Lateef’s musicianship was a profound understanding of the blues, best expressed through the wailing, cavernous tone he produced on the tenor sax. It was a sound braised by soulful bent pitches and to-the-point phrasing that grabbed you by the collar and refused to let go....