Percussionist Adam Rudolph is a musical ambassador in the truest sense—he has spent his entire career bridging the spaces between different musical traditions and cultures. Originally from Chicago, Rudolph began his career playing with the great saxophonist and AACM co-founder Fred Anderson, as well as the like-minded Contemporary Jazz Quintet in Detroit. In 1977, Rudolph studied traditional music and drumming in Ghana, an experience that would impact his future musical pursuits. Over the next several years, Rudolph worked with trumpeter Don Cherry and and founded The Mandingo Griot Society with kora player Jali Foday Musa Suso, one of the first groups to combine African and American musical practices in a significant way. From 1988 to 2013, Rudolph also toured extensively with pioneering multi-instrumentalist Yuseef Lateef.Rudolph has led two of his own major groups over the past decades—his large scale Go: Organic Orchestra (check out this scintillating performance at Roulette in Brooklyn) and his smaller, but no less adventurous, Moving Pictures ensemble. In both groups, Rudolph seeks deep musical connections between performers and listeners, drawing from free-thinking improvisational techniques of the jazz avant-garde and traditional musics from around the world.This weekend, we at The Jazz Gallery are proud to celebrate Adam Rudolph's 60th birthday with two nights of performances by Moving Pictures. Rudolph will present new compositions written especially for this occasion. If the video below from Moving Pictures' last performance at the Gallery is any indication, these concerts are sure to be ecstatic and deeply felt affairs. Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures performs at The Jazz Gallery on Friday, September 11th, and Saturday, September 12th, 2015. The group features Mr. Rudolph on a wide range of percussion instruments, vocals, and electronics; Ralph M. Jones on an array of woodwind instruments; Alexis Marcello on keyboards and percussion; Jerome Harris on bass, guitars, and percussion; and Kenny Wessel on guitar and banjo. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. each night. $22 general admission ($12 for members) for each set. Purchase tickets here.