Made it to the second set of Adam’s group at the Firehouse. Rudolph on handrumset, electronic processing, thumb pianos, mouth bow, gongs, and percussion; Alexis Marcelo- piano, electric keyboards, kudu horn, percussion; Kaoru Watanabe- taiko, Japanese percussion, noh kan and fue flutes, electric koto and processing; Stephen Haynes- cornets, flugelhorns, trumpet, conch shells, didgeridoos, percussion. Yes, that is certainly a percussive army, but Rudolph and company have a way of weaving these disparate instruments into a sonic tapestry that is best viewed live. The songs ebbed and flowed with the instruments. Arriving early, I listened to Rudolph and Haynes chatting with local DJ and world music aficionado Richard Hill. They were speaking of their schooling and experiences as globetrotting students of trance percussion, Gnawa, Morocco, the Master musicians of Joujouka, I was getting dizzy trying to keep up. Rudolph looks like a beatnik Al Pacino , easily moving from percussion to laptop. Marcelo was the glue, providing the backdrop for the others to work. Watanabe’s instruments were so unusual, at one point he raised a metal pole with three rings dangling from the top and thumped the ground with it sounding like some demented Asian Jacob Marley. Haynes has been positively reviewed in this blog before, usually as a leader, he takes a team player approach in the Sunrise quartet. The trumpet and flugel are augmented with a cigar box didg that sounded like insect buzzing. The music on view was strange and beautiful, the bonus of seeing it live capped a wonderful set.
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