Robert Dick, Flutist

While jazz critics and listeners have elevated such flutists as Nicole Mitchell and Hubert Laws to the top of their polls, virtuoso Robert Dick has flown somewhat under the radar while doing nothing less than reinventing the sonic potential of the instrument. The New York City–bred composer, improviser, author, teacher, and inventor has been on a revolutionary musical road since the late 1960s. A recent spate of recordings—on a variety of independent labels and with an array of collaborators—confirms that the 69-year-old musician is an unfettered force of creative self-expression on more than a half dozen different flutes. Dick keeps …