Root Perspectives by Whit Dickey Quartet

[ TAO 12 ]


Tony Malaby - tenor saxophone
Matthew Shipp - piano
Brandon Lopez - bass
Whit Dickey - drums, direction


"Every gesture and nuance of [Dickey’s] percussive pronunciation is telling.” –Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes

“I get into music not just by playing but by accessing a vibration,” says Whit Dickey, a stalwart of New York’s improvised music scene whose brand new work directing yet another formidable quartet, Root Perspectives, gets to the heart of what he means by that. It’s the latest recording from his label TAO Forms, which since its 2020 founding has released a steady stream of outstanding album works, including James Brandon Lewis’ poll-winning, Jesup Wagon, and Dickey’s own highly inspired Expanding Light & Astral Long Form: Staircase in Space.
Root Perspectives was recorded in May, on the day after releasing Astral Long Form [ https://taoforms.bandcamp.com/album/astral-long-form-staircase-in-space ]

“I conceived this album off of a vibration that I felt some 15 years ago, while obsessively listening to the title composition of John Coltrane’s Crescent,” he recalls. “It began to have mathematical meaning to me.” The sound and energy of a tenor-based quartet was a logical choice, and this presents the first encounter between Dickey and master saxophonist Tony Malaby, along with one of Dickey’s closest associates, Matthew Shipp, and the youngest of the group, agile and inventive bassist Brandon Lopez.

Dickey began exploring this enigmatic Coltrane angle on Peace Planet [ https://whitdickey.bandcamp.com/album/peace-planet-box-of-light ] with the TAO Quartet featuring Shipp, bassist William Parker and altoist Rob Brown. On Root Perspectives, Dickey explains, he strove to flesh it out in more detail:

“While listening to Crescent and A Love Supreme, I tried to rhythmically anticipate each instrument of the classic quartet — drums, bass, horn and piano — while keying into the mantra / vibration. I began to hear how each instrument embodied the mantra in subtly different ways. On this album, I came into the studio with a plan to tap into the drum part of the mantra, and let the quartet rise from there. Listening back, I was quite happy with what I heard. I play with lots of deliberate bass drum punctuation, leaving room for inventive thematic development from the Yang frontline of Malaby and Shipp. Drums and bass are comparatively Yin here. The pieces came into sequence naturally in suite form. Out of the devastation of ‘Supernova’ and ‘Doomsday Equation’ comes new life with ‘Swamp Petals’ and ‘Starship Lotus’.”

Malaby’s root perspective is one of determined grit and fire. “He’s very responsive, and very inventive,” Dickey marvels. “His playing has tremendous resonance. And he responds so well to Matthew, whose protean rhythmic, harmonic & melodic playing on this album is elemental to everything. And then there’s Brandon, a younger guy who is a lot of fun to work with. He’s really using the whole bass, all aspects of it, sometimes using his hands almost like congas.”

That and other Latin aspects of Lopez’s playing complement Dickey’s unique, multi-directional and spare approach to the whole of the drum kit. “Conceptually, it’s a drum-centric album,” says the leader, pointing to the impact of the late, great Milford Graves. “His Afro-Cuban, timbale-like approach to the drum kit made a lasting impression on me when I was his student at Bennington College.” This variation of color and sonority informs Dickey’s root perspective as well. Taking inspiration from master teachers, the Tao, and the players assembled around him, Dickey has found a musical center that grows more profound with each passing year.

Drummer-composer with a singularly potent drum voice. He first made his mark in the groups of Matthew Shipp & David S. Ware; featured here are his leader works on the AUM Fidelity & TAO Forms labels.

In 2020, Dickey & AUM launched TAO Forms, a label also devoted to jazz of an elevated nature, with WD as creative director: https://taoforms.bandcamp.com/

Photo © R.I. Sutherland-Cohen, 2019