For the past four decades composer, improviser/percussionist/moment creator Adam Rudolph has performed extensively in concert throughout North & South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has been hailed as “a pioneer in world music” by the NY Times and “a master percussionist” by Musician magazine. He has released over twenty five recordings under his own name, featuring his compositions and percussion work. Adam composes for his ensembles Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures, Hu: Vibrational percussion group, and Go: Organic Orchestra, an eighteen to fifty four piece group for which he has developed an original music notation and conducting system. He has taught and conducted hundreds of musicians worldwide in the Go: Organic Orchestra concept. In 1995 Rudolph premiered his opera The Dreamer, based on the text of Friedreich Nietzsche’s “The Birth of Tragedy”. Adam has performed with Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar, A.A.C.M co-founders Fred Anderson and Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, and Omar Sosa. He has toured extensively and recorded 15 albums with Yusef Lateef including duets and their large ensemble compositional collaborations. Between his beginnings of sharing his musical creations to the very moment of reading this word, Adam is combining so many factors of living and life into the living being of sound. He is able to connect many rhythms and grooves together through the relationships with the people, the places and the knowledge he has been able to soak in and forge a path forward with blends of the this and then and the then and now.
Adam is more than a friend of the proGram. The way he does what he does is exactly how I feel themusic I get. When I say get, I man that gets me. This time around we are discussing his latest project: “Ragmala: A Garland Of Ragas” with his Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive. We get into how these two musical energies got together to create this latest release, and how it works. We take a look inside a couple of the latest moments of evolution of tracks familiar to the ear and how intuition, integrity and worldly knowledge help in piecing or is that “PEACE-ing” it all together. We also discuss how such an expansive project of many is able to be performed in a live setting, and an upcoming December 13th concert. I always feel like my mind’s ear has been opened just a little wider after talking with Adam, and this time is no exception. As you listen in, you’ll understand. I also wanted to point out the fantastic and perfectly chosen art that accompanies this double record release (and some other release of Adam’s) by the artist, Nancy Jackson . I am proud to be apart of all that Adam does and the honor of bringing all this art to the listeners keeps me feeling real.
