Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space, by Whit Dickey Quartet

Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space

by Whit Dickey Quartet

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* Full art & notes included as PDF booklet with Digital Album.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Gorgeous set printed on heavyweight stock featuring liner notes by master William Parker. Whit Dickey was very moved by those notes. This release is another of the special ones, right up there with 'Peace Planet'.

Includes unlimited streaming of Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Purchasable with gift card

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Both of the highly distinct, though complementary, Whit Dickey Quartet releases of 2022 for a special price. Noting, to be clear, this purchase includes download/streaming of Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space only.

Includes unlimited streaming of Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 5 days

Purchasable with gift card

$22 USD or more

	1.	Blue Circuit 19:32
	2.	Space Quadrant 06:46
	3.	The Pendulum Turns 10:05
	4.	Staircase in Space 11:01
	5.	Signify 15:29

about

[TAO 09]

Whit Dickey: drums, composition
Rob Brown: alto saxophone
Mat Maneri: viola
Brandon Lopez: bass

Drummer–percussionist Whit Dickey channels ecstatic cosmic vibration together with a stellar quartet on Astral Long Form: Staircase In Space, his second album as a leader for TAO Forms. 

“The interaction between players is perfect. Entrances, exits, the spaces between sound and silence, all meeting at the right moment. This is great human music that will stand up to any dark forces in any universe.”  –William Parker 

Since the launch of TAO Forms in 2020, Whit Dickey has curated an astonishing series of releases showcasing some of the most forward-looking voices in modern jazz and creative music. Among them is Jesup Wagon by James Brandon Lewis’ Red Lily Quintet, which topped several year-end ‘Best of 2021’ lists, including #1 in JazzTimes Critics’ Poll and the coveted top spot in the international Jazz Critics Poll established by Francis Davis. 

The label has also provided an outlet for Dickey’s own vital work – first with 2020’s breathtaking trio date, Expanding Light, featuring his 30+ year colleague, maestro alto saxophonist Rob Brown, and young firebrand bassist Brandon Lopez. That trio returns in Quartet here – joined by violist Mat Maneri, another virtuoso with whom Dickey shares a long history. Astral Long Form is without doubt one of the drummer’s most adventurous works to date. These five conceptually interwoven pieces, as performed by this intuitive new quartet, may well come to be considered his masterwork. Well, one of them..

“I asked Rob, Brandon and Mat to not think about time too much; I just wanted them to play; not to follow me or each other. There was a lot of freedom granted, and I hoped the lines would intersect with meaning.”

  For Dickey that freedom emerged, in part, from a period of profound loss, on top of the dispirited feeling we’ve all shared over the past couple of years. The album is dedicated to the drummer’s mother, who died in late 2020. And, just ten days before the February 2021 recording session, Dickey’s onetime mentor from his time at Bennington College, master percussionist and thinker Milford Graves passed. 

“This album wasn’t conceived with Professor Graves in mind,” Dickey says, “but I can’t help but pay homage to him when I play. His unique approach to the bass pedal and the way he used his feet had a big influence on me. And, I definitely felt a kind of freedom after my mom passed because she gave me the freedom to follow my bliss when I really needed it.” 

Whatever the sources of energy that ripple through the album, there is a sustained, enrapturing mode that unites its five parts. In keeping with the drummer’s yin/yang view of musical balance – exemplified not only by the label name, but in the duality of his previous quartet release, Peace Planet / Box of Light : whitdickey.bandcamp.com/album/peace-planet-box-of-light , this album opens immediately into a heretofore under-explored expanse. Staircase in Space luxuriates in open space and atmospheres, untethered from the common notion of time.

Regarding the title, Dickey explains “It’s a long form in the sense that the music stays in a long vibration ringing throughout its rhythmic underpinning. These vibrations form a growing staircase and the phenomenon goes on ad infinitum.” He continues, “I was looking for something more relaxing, where I could ground myself, the way I can when I hear Cecil Taylor or John Coltrane. I like that feeling where everything seems to float – it’s comfortable.”

credits

released May 6, 2022

All compositions by Whit Dickey, in collaboration with the Quartet;
© Whit Dickey (BMI)

Recorded, Mixed & Mastered by Jim Clouse
at Park West Studios, Brooklyn

Produced by Whit Dickey
Liner notes by William Parker
Art & Design by William Mazza Studio

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about

Whit Dickey New York, New York

Drummer-composer from New England with singular drum voice; a resident of NYC since the late 80s. Featured here are his works on AUM Fidelity, and a vintage set first published by Riti Records.

In May 2020, WD & AUM Fidelity launched TAO Forms, a new recording label devoted to jazz of an enlightened & elevated nature: taoforms.bandcamp.com

Photo © R.I. Sutherland-Cohen, 2019 ... more

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