A global explorer

Reviewed February 2008

Listening to an Adam Rudolph CD is a bit like hanging out at a university music department evenings after the faculty have gone home and the students have taken over the rehearsal rooms. Jazz, classical and pop forms meet up with Afro and Latin rhythms in a not-always-structured environment – yet for every moment that strays irrevocably into musical wilderness, there is another moment of transcent creativity that just glows.

Rudolph is a hand percussionist as well as band leader, and has been plying world beat explorations for 30 years now. But his long, recent stint with jazz saxophonist Yusef Lateef has clearly rubbed off on him as this record is far more infused with jazz than his previous solo outings. Lateef's out-there experimentation, too, clearly left a mark on Rudolph's own musical philosophy, at least if this new CD is offered up as evidence.

This is a more explorative CD than Rudolph's previous solo outings, and seems more an extension of his recent recordings with Lateef than his previous Moving Pictures outings. Listeners who liked his earlier stuff may not find this album as copacetic – but anyone who dug his collaborations with Lateef will likely enjoy this one as well.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).