Corrie Dick by Howard Lawes
|
Photograph by Alex Morley
In 2010, Rob Adams of the Glasgow Herald had already picked out Corrie Dick as an exceptional young musician and in a 2013 interview, Corrie described to Rob his musical upbringing and education. As so often happens, music ran in the Dick family. Corrie learned the piano at home and then at school he had the opportunity to play viola, and then the trumpet in the school band before moving on to drums. Realising that it was jazz that really inspired him Corrie played trumpet and drums with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland, the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra, and the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra. In 2009 Corrie gained a place at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, packed his bags and moved from Scotland to London and whether by accident or design found that jazz drummers were in great demand - Corrie recalls "It was great because my generation in Scotland has produced a lot of really talented drummers and while that was inspiring in its own way, it was hard to break into bands that were already well served. But when I came to Trinity there weren't many drummers around and I suddenly had all these opportunities. I was playing at least two or three gigs every week."
Talking to Corrie at Woolwich Works prior to his EFG London Jazz Festival performance with Tara Cunningham he told me that in 2010 he released his first album, Scenes For Someone with eight, self-composed tracks played by a sextet that included colleagues that he befriended in the bands and orchestras in Glasgow. Corrie relates that it was one of these colleagues, pianist Pete Johnstone, who was instrumental in encouraging him to concentrate on the drums. Once in London, Corrie benefitted from the tuition of the late Dave Wickens and Gene Calderazzo but as well as drumming he studied composition and arranging. However, when studying music, just as important as the tuition you receive are the friends you make, and the music you make with them.
Corrie says "For me music is everything, but without community it is nothing. So when I arrived at Trinity Laban and became surrounded by phenomenal and enthusiastic musicians and artists my own age with ambition I was in heaven. Those four years of immersion were so much better than I had hoped". Some of the musicians that Corrie collaborated with include Jacob Collier, Jasper Høiby, Ligeti Quartet, Laura Jurd and Elliot Galvin. He was also able to play with the renowned Scottish tenor saxophonist, the late Bobby Wellins. During his time at Trinity Laban Corrie won a Scottish Jazz Award 2012 for Up And Coming Artist, BBC’s Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year 2013 and the Jazz Department Gold Medal in 2013.
Listen to Sinking from Corrie's new album Sun Swells.
It was in 2011 that Corrie, along with trumpeter, Laura Jurd and pianist, Elliot Galvin formed the Chaos Collective, a self-help organisation that not only provided a supply of young musicians eager to perform but also pooled resources for those more practical things that performing and recording musicians need, including its own record company. Laura Jurd wrote in London Jazz News in 2012: "We found that there was a group of musicians with very similar ideals and outlooks when it came to making music. We want to support each other’s musical development and to create opportunities for other like-minded artists. Whilst improvisation is at the heart of many ‘Chaos’ ensembles, the collective doesn’t define itself as deeply rooted in the jazz tradition. Instead, ‘Chaos’ provides a platform for new, collaborative music that draws from a wealth of traditions, focusing on raw, honest music-making that avoids being weighed down by any kind of stylistic prejudice. It’s all about that special moment when Thomas Tallis might meet the second Viennese school which, in turn, might meet eighties electro-pop. There are so many sound worlds out there that improvisation can be a big part of … that’s what makes the future of music so exciting". Chaos Collective went on to release six albums and Corrie played on four of them, the last of which was his own album called Impossible Things.
Since leaving academia Corrie Dick has been performing continuously in a variety of bands including Laura Jurd's Dinosaur, the Elliot Galvin Trio, the Rob Luft Group, Jasper Hoiby's Fellow Creatures, Blue-Eyed Hawk, and Ink Line. He leads bands that usually include favourite collaborators such as Matt Robinson on piano, Joe Wright on tenor saxophone, Tom McCredie on double bass and 
Rob Luft on guitar, and perhaps this changing line-up reflects a fundamental advantage of belonging to a collective, particularly the Chaos Collective.
Corrie frequently gives solo drum performances where he demonstrates the rich and diverse potential of the drum kit and as he puts it: “Here’s an instrument that holds in it a bold combination of cultures - marching bass and snare drum, West-African toms and Turkish cymbals, it’s genius, and it’s healthy to celebrate where these elements came from.” To further develop his drumming technique Corrie has not stopped learning, and has visited Ghana to learn from drumming master Saddiq Addy and continues to study traditional drumming styles from other African countries and Japan. He is also particularly interested in how the drum has been used in traditional Scottish music and, as so many Scottish musicians do, reflects the profound sense of cultural association that he feels in his playing.
The diversity of the bands of which Corrie is an essential part and the quality of his fellow band-members provide testament to the high regard with which Corrie Dick is held by both musicians and audiences. His two most recent album releases as leader, Impossible Things (2015) and now Sun Swells (2022) provide recordings of music by what has been described as a "joy-inducing supergroup". The nonet of 2015 has grown to be an undecet in 2022 with Corrie Dick (drums / percussion / composition), Marianna Sangita (vocal / lyrics), Dave Malkin (vocal / lyrics), Alica Zawadzki (vocal), Laura Jurd (trumpet), Joe Wright (saxophone), Tom Moore (viola), Rob Luft (guitar), Matt Robinson (piano / synth), Joe Webb (organ) and Tom McCredie (bass).
Listen to Warehouse from Sun Swells.
Describing the music of the band Blue-Eyed Hawk, Corrie said "One of my main motivations is to move people and let them get lost in a dream for a moment and if there are songs with strong characters in the lyrics, then you can really connect with an audience. But more and more I think of myself as a musician first and a drummer second - or a musician who just happens to play drums." In the context of this latest release he might also have gone on to talk about his composition, song-writing and arranging which is very evident in both Impossible Things and Sun Swells and elevates the music into a genre that embraces jazz, folk and world music and is pretty much unique. Corrie describes the music on Sun Swells as: "This is outsider jazz; it’s extremely listenable music that has lots of very current, familiar ingredients but put together in a way you may not be familiar with. Some key elements include soaring folkish melodies, Scandinavian free jazz, ‘90s-kid grooves, a playful shunning of conventional jazz roles and form, stillness, turbulence, beautiful and ugly-pretty sounds, warmth, stunning lyrical imagery, climate change, feminism, and eclectic guests. It’s an album that embraces contrasts and spectra and that can be listened to in so many ways. It finds cohesion in the disparate.”
Alica Zawadzki once related that at the end of recording Impossible Things the musicians were quite overcome with emotion and there were a few tears; one or two critics were less enthusiastic but for many music lovers it is an exceptionally beautiful album. It has taken seven years for the follow up to arrive and in that time Corrie has experienced success, disappointment, pandemic and the joy of fatherhood and perhaps all these things have inspired his fertile imagination and prodigious talent to produce another wonderful album. While listening to the music, which you will want to do again and again, there will be plenty of time to wonder what the title means and what the picture on the album cover represents.
Listen to The River from Sun Swells.
Click here for Corrie's website. Click here for details and samples of the Sun Swells album.
Photograph by Alex Morley
Other pages you might find of interest :
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2022
Click HERE to join our mailing list