Whit Dickey Trio | Emergence | Not Two Records

Not Two, 2009 | MW 814-2 | CD

Whit Dickey – drums | Eri Yamamoto – piano | Daniel Carter – reeds, trumpet , flute

Recorded February 24, 2009 at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY by Jim Clouse. Songs composed by the group.  Co-produced by Whit Dickey and Marek Winiarski. Design by Marek Wajda.

Tracklist: 1. Conversation [06:03] 2. Get Up [08:40] 3. Mobile [07:36] 4. Convection [06:02] 5. Rocker [05:54] 6. Twirls [10:13] 7. Last Taste [07:49] 8. Plum Blossom [07:07]

Ms. Eri Yamamoto

is a NY based jazz pianist who has been playing regularly with her own trio for nearly a decade. After releasing three discs on her own Jane Street label, Eri hooked up with Matt Shipp and William Parker and has been moving into freer playing and forms. After playing on two discs for William Parker, Thirsty Ear released two discs under Eri’s name, another trio date and a duos session with William Parker, Hamid Drake, Daniel Carter & Federico Ughi. On each of these discs, Eri’s playing gets more adventurous. I caught this trio with Eri, Daniel Carter & Whit Dickey at this year’s Vision Fest (2009) and was knocked out by their performance.

This is a studio recording and does have impressive sound and although these are group improvisations, it rarely sounds that way. “Conversation” is sparse and rather bluesy yet minimal piano, simmering muted trumpet and ultra subtle drums. What’s is interesting about this disc is that both Daniel Carter and Whit Dickey are known for being some of downtown’s most intense free improvisers, yet here they are unusually restrained and fit perfectly with the calm yet quietly provocative overall vibe. For “Get Up”, it is as if the players are moving through a dream and swinging at a medium tempo. “Mobile” is even more sparse and haunting, with exquisite flute from DC and suspense-filled sounds from Eli and Whit. “Twirls” is aptly titles since Whit sounds like he is twirling, providing the central uplifting rhythmic flow with the piano and tenor spinning around him. Throughout this disc Eli paints a skeletal thread between the members of this fine trio, weaving as one elegant singular force. A surprise move, a sly feint, from what we might otherwise expect from these folks. — Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

EMERCD

 

CD version (incl. shipment cost world-wide)

$ 16.00
Out of Stock

MP3 version (86.19MB zip download)

$ 9.00
Quantity

One thought on “Whit Dickey Trio | Emergence | Not Two Records

  1. When the collective of drummer Whit Dickey, pianist Eri Yamamoto, and horn player Daniel Carter held sway at the Vision Festival in June 2009 they built tension to unbearable levels that built up to a cathartic resolution. On their first disc together, recorded in the studio four months prior to their Festival triumph, they program eight group improvisations in a much more relaxed vein, sometimes resolving sometimes not, but always coherent.

    Dickey is still best known for his four-year tenure driving David S. Ware
    ‘s classic quartet, but since then he’s featured his compositions on a series of recordings for the Clean Feed label. For the last few years he has turned his back on his writing, preferring instant composition as part of improvising collectives. Such a move has proven a career-long gambit for Carter, with Other Dimensions in Music and TEST, being his best known stomping grounds, though he has featured alongside Dickey in pianist Matthew Shipp’s recent quartets. In such company, Yamamoto is a relative newcomer, the Japanese pianist only moving to New York City in 1995. Of late she has worked closely with downtown ringmaster William Parker, making a telling contribution to his outstanding Corn Meal Dance (Aum Fidelity, 2007), as well as on her wonderful Duologue (Aum Fidelity, 2008), which also showcased Carter, as well as gigging with her own longstanding trio.

    It is Yamamoto who provides the best entry point, as she is not afraid to inject structure into the understated free form with her strong rhythmic foundation and bluesy intonation. In fact, nothing she plays here would seem that out of place on her more mainstream trio dates. For all of Carter’s fire music credentials, which only come to the fore on “Last Taste,” his main mood here is a brooding abstracted lyricism, whether on trumpet, flute or saxophones. Dickey is a master of multiple and implied rhythms, shifting in and out of time to a point that a dreamlike quality pervades the music, compounded by his richly detailed touches, making full use of space for dramatic effect.

    The trio moves from the nervously lyrical “Conversation,” where Carter’s muted trumpet muses distantly over Yamamoto’s full-voiced chords and Dickey’s fragmented tattoo, to the jaunty on-the-fly syncopation of “Rocker” where Carter’s bluesy tenor connects with the earthy piano configurations. As they do, there is a sense of trust evident, indicating that each of the pieces becomes a shared journey. Unexpected destinations abound, though, as when Dickey’s barely perceptible rumbling drums on “Convection” introduce a controlled falsetto whistle from Carter’s tenor before morphing into a breathy ballad. Well-honed listening skills are on display throughout, as on the urgent pulsing “Twirls” when Yamamoto picks up on some of Carter’s alto phrases and transforms them into supporting motifs, or Dickey’s responsiveness to Yamamoto’s piano rhythms on the pointillist “Get Up.” But it is the closing “Plum Blossom” which demonstrates one of the wonders of free jazz and the strength of this disc: the propensity for beauty and order to emerge from seeming chaos.

Leave a Review

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.