01/29/2025
AllMusic Staff Pick
Bennie Maupin / Adam Rudolph
Symphonic Tone Poem for Brother Yusef
In 2019, Claremont, California's Angel City Jazz Festival commissioned an original work to commemorate Lateef's centennial birthday. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the 2020 festival was canceled. Undaunted, Maupin and Rudolph recorded this five-movement work anyway. Though instruments are not credited, one can hear Maupin play bass clarinet, flutes, soprano and tenor saxophones, and more, while Rudolph provides a battery of percussion instruments, handles arrangements, and contributes careful, illustrative electronic processing. While certainly composed in places, there is abundant room for instinctual improvisation. The approach is both organic and disciplined; the music is at once meditative, eerie, and arresting.
Symphonic Tone Poem for Brother Yusef by Bennie Maupin, Adam Rudolph released in 2022. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at...