Using his Glissando Headjoint®, Robert Dick rocks the house with an excerpt from his piece "Sliding Life Blues". Taped in Kosovo in 2005.
Flute virtuoso Robert Dick is teaching a master class at MTSU this week, and now the folks at FMRL have put together a last-minute Nashville show for him. Dick is a master improviser who's worked with John Zorn and dozens of other experimental music luminaries. He invented a sliding mouthpiece called the Glissando Headjoint that allows flautists to bend notes far beyond their usual capability. He also literally wrote the book on modern extended techniques for flute, and it's called The Other Flute, which gave Jimmy Fallon a wide-open shot for
a few low-hanging yuks. While I'm certain that I'll never get too old for dick jokes, I can also understand why Dick
didn't find it that funny. But rather than get aggro about it, he started a campaign through his newsletter (reprinted in full
here) to get fans to request him as a guest on The Tonight Show — which, based on the above clip, would be awesome.
Whether or not that pans out, you can catch Dick in person at Portland Brew in 12South this Wednesday, April 8. The cover is $10, doors are at 8 p.m., and the show starts at 8:30 with a set by the Voight-Kampff duo, which is Stephen Seifert on dulcimers and synths and Brady Sharp on prepared guitar and electronics. See the Facebook event for more details.
