Podcast 603: A Conversation with Adam Rudolph

Adam Rudolph continues to create new and wonderful soundscapes with every project in which he gets involved. This year has seen him finish his trilogy that began with U: Vibrational presents The Epic Botanical Beat Suite, by releasing Morphic Resonances and The Glare of the Tiger. While each of these three albums has a different vibe, and is performed by different musicians, there is a commonality in the music's spirit, yearning quality and intellect. This is modern music written and played at a very high level, whether performed by string quartets and solos in Morphic Resonances, or his post-fusion electric band Moving Pictures in The Glare of the Tiger. Rudolph has been mixing what we might call World Music with jazz and Western Art Music for years. His study of African drumming and Indonesian music led him to become a top hand drummer, bringing third world sounds to the music in his head. What that actually is can be hard to describe.  Liner notes for The Glare of the Tiger reference the works of Ornette Coleman, Yosef Lateef, Roy Haynes, Don Cherry, Sam Rivers, and even Jon Hassell as leaping off points for its content, and you wouldn't be wrong if you heard a little electric Miles Davis, Shakti and even Brian Eno in there as well.  Our conversation touches on a wide variety of musical influences, from the music of the Mbuti pygmies of the African rainforest, to the late Muhal Richard Abrams and the A.A.C.M. to his long-time friend, the late Yusef Lateef. Podcast 603 features our conversation as well as selections from The Glare of the Tiger including "Rotations" and "Dialogics" and "Coincidentia Oppositorum" from Morphic Resonances. I think you will find this a heady, if stimulating,  conversation.