Whit Dickey Trio - Expanding Light review I John Fordham's jazz album of the month

The Guardian 80

(Tao Forms)
Drummer Dickey, saxophonist Rob Brown and bassist Brandon Lopez entwine in tidal ebbs and flows

A post-Coltrane coterie of American free jazz players, including the late sax radical David S Ware and eclectic composer/bassist William Parker, have kept the flame of the 1960s avant garde burning. Drummer Whit Dickey, a former student of free percussion legend Milford Graves and a frequent associate of both Ware and Parker, is a key contributor, too, as this scorching set by his trio confirms. Dickey engagingly calls much of this music “full-bore yang” (he calls it “free-grunge” too) for the yin-yang energies unleashed in its collision of the known and the unknown.