Schooled in the be-bop and hard bop idiom, his musical experience and vocabulary also spans funk/ world music/ orchestral and contemporary forms.

Dale toured with Sonny Stitt and Ritchie Cole at the age of seventeen, and moved to New York after completing his musical studies in Australia and studied saxophone with George Coleman and Dave Liebman, piano with Barry Harris, James Williams and Hal Galper, and arranging with Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Album. He went on to record and tour with such greats as Chet Baker, Gil Evans, Jackie Mclean, Billy Cobham, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Barron, and as previously mentioned Cedar Walton and Art Blakey.

As an improvising artist and composer in great demand, he tours Europe and America regularly as well as keeping a busy recording schedule world wide.

He has won many prestigous recording industry awards in Australia for his recordings and compositions.