Jazz Articles
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Hu Vibrational: Timeless
by Geno Thackara
An Adam Rudolph recording is less a collection of musical pieces than of sound paintings. The elements he works with are musical ones--any instrument known to mankind might be used, and often even used to play notes--but traditions of form and melody tend to be tossed out the window from the start. The tones are treated as daubs of paint on a palette, splashed here and there whenever they will add something to whichever imaginary landscape he is evoking at ...
read moreKaruna Trio: Imaginary Archipelago
by Mark Sullivan
Percussionists Adam Rudolph and Hamid Drake, and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Ralph Miles Jones play together as the Karuna Trio. These spontaneous compositions were built on a deep foundation of shared experience, dating back to their teen years, for Rudolph and Drake; Rudolph and Jones later played together in the Eternal Wind quintet. The concept here is that the music they were making is from a fantastical place: an imaginary archipelago. Each of the eleven tracks is named for an island in the ...
read moreAdam Rudolph / Ralph M. Jones / Hamid Drake: Imaginary Archipelago
by Mark Corroto
Often the music of Adam Rudolph can be a bit intimidating. An authority in Afro-Cuban, Indian, West Africa musics and jazz, Rudolph's performances remind budding ethnomusicologists and jazz critics their knowledge inhabits a very provincial realm. Luckily that intimidation is reserved to academics and writers. The remaining listening audience is free to enjoy these sounds associated with world music. The second release from Rudolph's Karuna Trio with percussionist Hamid Drake and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Ralph M. Jones, Imaginary Archipelago, might ...
read moreGo: Organic Orchestra & Brooklyn Raga Massive: Ragmala: A Garland Of Ragas
by Mark Sullivan
Percussionist Adam Rudolph performed and recorded extensively with World Music originator Yusef Lateef from 1988-2013, and has performed with trumpeters Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, and Wadada Leo Smith, among others. He became a composer after being inspired by Cherry (also one of World Music's originators) while staying at his home. In the Go: Organic Orchestra he has developed a remarkable improvisational conducting style. The Orchestra has been active for nearly twenty years; their first recording was Go: Organic Orchestra: 1 ...
read moreGo: Organic Orchestra & Brooklyn Raga Massive: Ragmala: A Garland Of Ragas
by Dan McClenaghan
World music pioneer and percussionist Adam Rudolph is the instigator and ringleader of Ragmala: A Garland of Ragas. Bringing together his Go: Organic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Raga Massive—forty world class musicians—he has created a “future orchestra," a blending of sounds of the Middle East, Africa, India and beyond. Inclusive is the key word. The sound has been called a Bitches Brew—Miles Davis (Columbia, 1970)—of the twenty-first century, but perhaps a more accurate comparison might be Alice Coltrane ...
read moreHamid Drake / Ralph M. Jones / Adam Rudolph: Karuna
by Mark Corroto
Adam Rudolph's music has always been exotic and yet familiar, far-flung, and seemingly nearby. Then again, the same can be said of Hamid Drake and Ralph M. Jones' work. This trio is sort of a dream team of performers. OK, just about every project Rudolph completes is a stellar combination created for a particular purpose. Presently, the Tibetan word for compassion, Karuna, is fitting. These dozen tracks radiate a kindness and humanity. The music is empathic for the listener because ...
read moreBlack Milk Impulses: Manifesto
by John Eyles
Black Milk Impulses is a Berlin-based trio that describes itself as “a laboratory for improvised or roughly arranged electroacoustic jazz," a description which manages to incorporate a great deal into a short space, thus leaving the door open for many possibilities. The core members of the project are Australian pianist Leo Auri and Italian drummer Gianpaolo Camplese, who first met in 2009 and shortly afterwards formed the trio Wine for Breakfast. After forming Black Milk Impulses in 2011, they collaborated ...
read moreBlack Milk Impulses: Manifesto
by Mark Corroto
We love jazz music because its purveyors wander off-script to make music. That is, they improvise. They do not wing-it or fake it. Step one, obtain a command of your instrument. Step two involves learning compositions. Step three, for a jazz musician, is to reinvent both step one and two.Such is Manifesto by the global consortium known as Black Milk Impulses. The core of BMI is Italian drummer Gianpaolo Camplese and Australian pianist Leo Auri. They have collaborated ...
read moreAdam Rudolph's Go: Organic Orchestra: Thought Forms
by Matthew Miller
About a minute and a half into “Mirrors," track two on Thought Forms, the distinct voices of Adam Rudolph's Go: Organic Orchestra begin to blend. Percussive tongue slaps, growling flutes and slashed cymbals collect in a glowing sonic aggregate; overtones arch up, out and over the thirty-plus member band. The effect is otherworldly and, like everything else on Thought Forms, fleeting. Rudolph describes the music on the orchestra's fourth album as “a suite with interludes of calligraphic ...
read moreWadada Leo Smith & Adam Rudolph: Compassion
by Florence Wetzel
Compassion, a beautiful duet recording by Wadada Leo Smith and Adam Rudolph, provides a welcome addition to jazz' long tradition of spiritual expression. Recorded live in 2002 at a concert in Venice, California, the disc features Smith on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Rudolph on handrumset, dusu'ngoni, sibsi, vocal, kalimbas, gongs, cymbals and percussion. The song titles give a sense of the musicians' intentions--for example, “Sun Ray Colors and Rainbow Images," “Fragrance of Light," and “Silver Drum Circle." ...
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