Robert Dick

It is a monumental task to interpret the music of Jimi Hendrix on the flute. The incredible flute virtuoso Robert Dick has managed to do it with ease, finesse, and soul. There is almost no sound that he cannot create on the flute with his amazing technique. Chords, slides, colors, drum and bass sounds, all had to be created acoustically. There are no electronically altered flute sounds on this recording. 

This recording represents a statement that Robert Dick has long dreamed of making. Like many people, musicians and nonmusicians alike, he has been inspired, provoked, moved, and challenged by the work of Jimi Hendrix. In the 1970s, inspired by Hendrix’s sound-world, Dick spent countless hours experimenting with the flute and discovering thousands of new sounds. The traditional limitations of the flute－playing only single, chromatic notes with a more of less “sweet” quality－had become unbearable. Many musicians of Dick’'s generation, furthermore, share a belief that any instrument can perform any musical role. Fueled by the study of electronic music, world music, and John Cage’'s aesthetic that anything can be heard as music, he formed his concepts of the flute.

This CD presents four original arrangements of classic Hendrix tracks: "Third Stone From The Sun," "Pali Gap," "Purple Haze," and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)". The other three tracks are original compositions written by Robert Dick, derived from other Hendrix tracks. "Greenhouse" is a blues that is directly descended from "“Red House." "”It’'s Still Like It Wouldn’'t Be Yesterday" is an episodic work for overdubbed flutes; Hendrix’'s atmospheric pieces, such as “"Moon, Turn The Tides...gently, gently, away"” or “"Electric Ladyland"” are the inspiration here. "Tycho," composed together with Dave Soldier, uses the guitar coda of “"Castles Made of Sand”" in a totally transfigured way.