Good Medicine

IG-BO - Joseph Bowie & Adam Rudolph’s musical relationship of high mutual respect culminated over 10 years ago with Yusef Lateef for a series of concerts and recording celebrating Dr. Lateef’s 80 years. Joe later joined Adam’s Moving Pictures, the musically provocative and pivotal group enhanced in Adam’s magical world of rhythm expertise. In Moving Pictures Joseph was motivated and encouraged to further develop his experimental “Brass-electronics” techniques merged with traditional musical forms and traditional instrumentation. As family, they explore futuristic development of ensemble performance characteristic in the tradition of modern improvised music. The two musicians are born from a wide and diverse range of experiences… where World & African rhythms/advanced composition meets R&B & Funk/Dance/vocal/Electronica. Mr. Rudolph is a Master Percussionist and composer with an understanding of timing and rhythm that is multi-culturally un-paralleled. Joseph has developed new approaches to brass performance with “self-controlled electronics” fused with rhythm and his charismatic approach and sensibility making this duo union truly “Ancient to the Future”. JB GOOD MEDICINE - what we strive for our music to be. The natural reverberations of earth and sky. From time before time humans have been creating music for healing: to balance psycho - emotional pathways, to harmonize the cellular vibrations of the body, to expand consciousness itself. This way of wisdom was shared with us by the elders of this music as the essential approach to creativity. THE MIX – bands of tin are wrapped around the tongue keys of the thumb piano, the metal sarsara rattle is inserted into the end of the Gnawa sintir, a gut string is strung across the skin of the brekete drum. Throughout much of Africa musician-healers have used these and other methods to complexify the voice of their instruments so when played, a parallel “shadow line” of sound is heard. These rhythm overtones are sometimes called “the voice of the ancestors” and are linked to the transcendent quality of the music. In recent years, artists like Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Joe Bowie and Congotronics used newer technologies for this. The music on this recording was mixed with this idea in mind. The sounds of the instruments are allowed to resonate into deep space, creating a shadow world of harmonic colors. As the music unfolds each instrumental voice sings into this space adding to the dance of orchestration and form. AR Recorded at the end of their summer 2010 tour of the USA, Joe Bowie and Adam Rudolph entered the studio to document their duet explorations. The result is a new vision of the duet concept that gives respect to the elders and tradition (starting with the early world music improvisational “Mu” recordings of Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell) by moving the form firmly into the 21st century…with expanded language, electronics, orchestrations and techniques. About Adam Rudolph & Joe Bowie with Moving Pictures @ Tampere Festival fall 2012 Martin Longely, All About Jazz writes: "This was certainly one of the year's most ecstatic performances —in any city, any festival, anywhere." metarecords.com joebowie.org