Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures - Dream Garden (2008)

01.Oshogbo

02.The Violet Hour

03.Twilight Lake

04.Scintilla

05.Happiness Road

06.Cousin of the Moon

07.Mood

08.A Vision of Pure Delight

09.Mystery

10.Spectral

11.Helix

12.Dream Garden

13.The Sphinx

14.Walking the Curve.

Adam Rudolph: percussion

Brahim Fribgane: oud, tarija

Graham Haynes: cornet, flugelhorn

Hamid Drake: drum set, frame drum

Kenny Wessel: guitars

Ned Rothenberg: shakuhachi, bass clarinet, bass flute, alto sax

Shanir Blumenkrantz: acoustic bass, sintir

Steve Gorn: bansuri, clarinet, Pakistani oboe.

They used to say that everyone who bought the first Velvet Underground record must have started a band. In time, we may come to realize that every jazz musician who moved into the area of World Music first caught the bug from Don Cherry's Mu, Brown Rice, or any of the other number of globally-minded records Cherry issued after he moved away from the post-bop free jazz of the Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler quartets.

With his group Moving Pictures, percussionist Adam Rudolph (a Cherry alum) brings together several internationally-aware musicians to extend the tradition pioneered by Cherry. You would think Rudolph were a cornet or flautist himself, considering the generous space his compositions offer to Graham Haynes and Ned Rothenberg. From track to track, the horns ride on top of the steady, dipping rhythms of Brahim Frigbane's oud ("Walking the Curve ) or the assaultive polyrhythms originating from Hamid Drake's trap set ("Oshogbo ). Guitarist Kenny Wessel takes his place next to Haynes and Rothenberg, chopping along with the forward-driving momentum of Shanir Blumenkranz' bass ("Cousin of the Moon ) or supplying a repeated lick to support a Haynes solo ("A Vision of Pure Delight ).

The music on Dream Garden does not, however, entirely derive from the music of Don Cherry, whose work had an ethereal quality while, at the same time, generating the feeling that the instruments in play were strange and exotic and hands-on. By now, the instrumentation Rudolph employs isn't that unfamiliar and the recording process tends to smooth out the rough edges. But Rudolph listens to his own muse; she speaks with several different accents in a variety of languages and Rudolph doesn't need a translator.By JEFF STOCKTON.

Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef - The World at Peace (1995)

DISC 1
1.Ramifications
2.Coltrane Remembered
3.Africa 35
4.Chaos #3
5.Beloved
6.Like a Secret Argosy 7 Masara #2

DISC 2
1.A Feather in the Bright Sky
2.Ourobouros
3.Beyond Futility
4.Dreaming of the Skyway
5.Peace & Love
6.Overlay
7.Wheel of Life
8.Encore.

(Missing Tracks:*Disc I:Tracks 02-04-07.*Disc II:Tracks 03-05)

"In composing this piece I explored avenues I hadn't explored before. A plant living within another plant is known as an endophyte in biology, and I relate some of these ideas to constructing melodies and counter melodies from intervals already existing within a vertical chord. I also create a certain aesthetic by assigning a group of notes to a certain instrument, exclusive to other instruments which are assigned other groups of notes. I derived this idea from Chaos Theory, and the music that results brings to my mind the music of the Banda, a group of people from Central Africa. And as always, I meld my soul with the composition."
Yusef Lateef

"In composing ' The World At Peace,' one of the ways I attempted to extend my use of musical elements was to apply the shapes and gestures of language to sound and rhythm. In 'Wheel of Life' for example, the movement of call-and-response patterns allows each performer to weave their instrumental language into the musical fabric. Another compositional tool I call Cyclic Verticalism integrates a cyclic concept of rhythm (such as is used in much North Indian music) with a polymetric concept (such as is used in certain West African drumming practices). For example, in 'Africa 35' each instrumentalist has the freedom to develop the thematic materials through time with their own individual motion, creating tension and release while still relating to the overall form. I use these musical concepts in my composition to better serve my own aesthetic intent as well as that of the performers, so that sincere thoughts and emotions may be expressed."
Adam Rudolph

Yusef Lateef : tenor saxophone, flute, shenai, bamboo flutes, vocal | Adam Rudolph : hand drums, bendir, udu drums, talking drum, thumb piano, achimevu | Susan Allen : harp | Marcie Brown : cello | Eric Von Essen : bass | Jeff Gauthier : violin | David Johnson : vibes, marimba percussion | Ralph Jones : soprano & tenor saxophone, c and alto flute, bass clarinet, mussette | Charles Moore : trumpet, dumbek, kudu horn | Jose Luis Perez : trap drums, candombe drums, dumbek | Federico Ramos : acoustic, electric & midi guitars, kudu horn | Bill Roper : tuba, kudu horn

JAZZIZ - January 1998

Composers/multi-instrumentalists Yusef Lateef and Adam Rudolph haven co-created a master work so far-reaching in its beauty, range, and significance that, in a better world, this album would inspire T shirts worn across the nation.
Picture a 12-piece orchestra with percussion from Africa, the Americas, India, and the Middle East; a rainbow of wind instruments (shenai, musette, kudu horn, bass clarinet, tuba, saxophone, trumpet, flute); and ethereal strings (cello, harp, violin, and classical acoustic and electric MIDI guitar). Now, picture a seamless integration of those textures and tones, a ritual celebration of live trance beats, shamanistic polyrhythms, melodies with wings, drum skins on fire, space and silence between thick brush strokes of color.

The compositions are as harmonically elegant as any score in the Duke Ellington catalog. At once earthy and cosmic, Lateef & Rudolph's two-CD set transcends the myopia of genre-based thinking. Reaffirming the power of the creative spirit, The World at Peace offers up pure expression as a source of positivity and wonderment. Its cultural import spans the planet.
- Sam Prestianni