Rudolph was born in Chicago in 1955, and as a teen was mentored by the likes of Don Cherry, Fred Anderson, and Maulawi Nururdin. After receiving a self-designed undergraduate degree in ethnomusicology from Oberlin College, Rudolph went on to earn his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts; in 1977 he traveled to Ghana and met the famed griot Foday Musa Suso, and a year later they reunited in Chicago to form the Mandingo Griot Society, pioneering a fusion of traditional African music with jazz and R&B. Rudolph also spent 15 years studying North Indian tabla drums under the renowned Pandit Taranath Rao and collaborating with L. Shankar and Hassan Hakmoun. His extensive research throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa allowed Rudolph to master a vast range of percussion instruments including the congas, djembe, bendir, dumbek, tabla, talking drum, kalimba, and udu; in addition to appearing on sessions by everyone from Herbie Hancock to Jon Hassell to Shadowfax, he collaborated extensively with Yusef Lateef from 1988 onward.
Rudolph debuted his own group, Moving Pictures, with a self-titled 1992 LP; in 1995 he premiered his first opera, The Dreamer. In 2002, Rudolph's Go: Organic Orchestra released Web of Light, and a few months later, Go: Organic Orchestra: 1 on Meta. The acclaim from jazz, new music, and world music critics and DJs was almost universal. The following year, two of the group's live West Coast performances -- both collaborations with Lateef -- were captured for the double-length In the Garden.
Also during the early 21st century, Rudolph became a member of Build an Ark in Los Angeles, a multi-generationall collective of musicians who included Carlos Niño, Dwight Trible, Dexter Story, Phil Ranelin, and a dozen others. They issued two fine albums, 2004's Peace with Every Step and 2007's Dawn. Rudolph also collaborated with Leni Stern on her 2007 effort Africa. Dream Garden followed in 2008. In 2010 Rudolph issued two more recordings on Meta: Yèyí with reed master and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Jones and Towards the Unknown with composer and multi-instrumentalist Lateef (although on the latter disc, Lateef received top billing). Two years later, Merely a Traveler on the Cosmic Path with Jones appeared on Meta, followed by Go: Organic Orchestra's Sonic Mandala and Voice Prints with Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, and Douglas R. Ewart. It was Lateef's final recording. That year also marked the release of Good Medicine, a collaboration with Defunkt leader and trombonist Joseph Bowie under the name Ig Bo Duet. In 2015, Rudolph delivered Turning Towards the Light for Cuneiform with the Go: Organic Guitar Orchestra, featuring ten guitarists and a bassist. Among them were Rez Abbasi, Nels Cline, Joel Harrison, David Gilmore, Miles Okazaki, and Marvin Sewell. In 2017, a solo set entitled Morphic Resonances appeared on Meta showcasing the percussionist with a string quartet and the chamber group Kammeratorkestret Ensemble, as well as in various duos and trios. A year later, Rudolph worked with saxophonist Dave Liebman and percussionist/electronicist Tatsuya Nakatani for RareNoise on the album The Unknowable, and cut Karuna (Compassion) with old friends Jones and Drake. The drummer and percussionist worked with Liebman for 2019's Chi. That same year, Rudolph issued the double-length Ragmala, a 54-musician collaboration between Go: Organic Orchestra and the celebrated Indian fusion group Brooklyn Raga Massive, on which the composer/percussionist displayed his highly developed system of conducting for improvisers. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi