Conversations Dimensions
Conversations in Music: Dimensions
Pianist and Composer David Vincent Mills continued his concert series “Conversations” with his Los Angeles based band, 3 Squares at Studio Live on Thursday June 30th, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Cofounders with Mills of this progressive jazz trio, bassist Daren Burns and drummer Craig Bunch, featured along side Mills in this concert of improvised music, fourth in the annual series.
The group, who has played together for twenty years, was inspired by what Mills calls ‘musical haiku’, which are short musical phrases that are composed through improvisation during a performance. These phrases become themes for the performance and provide a vehicle for deeper exploration through further improvisation of the dialog created in the moment between the group. As this multidirectional conversation develops, a musical story of the moment was weaved right before your very ears.
3 Squares is a progressive instrumental jazz piano trio that embraces the tradition of jazz by composing original works as vehicles for improvisation. At the group's core is the desire to integrate different musical styles through experimentation to discover the interplay between those styles in the hopes of revealing a new voice. Each of the band members not only draws influences from traditional Western music, such as jazz, classical, rock, and funk, but they also tap into other various musical styles of the world for inspiration including African, Asian, Indian, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and Native American.
The beauty of a great conversation is that one does not know where it is going to lead. A sense of thrill and excitement develops as anticipation mounts as the conversation deepens and evolves into something unexpected yet highly rewarding. New territory has been discovered and a bond is forged between those conversing, if only for the moment. The participants become so immersed in the state of being truly in the moment that time stops and the outside world evaporates and the only thing that exists is the conversation and those creating it.
As a musician, in particular, one that improvises, one strives to capture that moment, but a paradox exists; music is about movement, at the very least, through time. To transcend time and capture the moment through music, the musician has to be super conscious of his or her environment. The instruments, the physical surroundings, the fellow musicians, the audience, and the communing with oneself are all influences to the outcome of a performance. This connection to one's environment and to oneself must be made and the musician must surrender to the moment in order to capture it.
This year's concert added a new dynamic to the conversation with the use of a trio. The first concert was solo piano, which would be represented by a point in geometry. This 'conversation' was unidirectional as ultimately it was with myself. The second and third concerts were configured as duets, piano and a dancer, and piano and a wind player, respectively. These 'conversations' were bidirectional or of a linear fashion as two points would make a line. With the use of a trio, the three players, or points form a plane, and the directions of the movement of the 'conversation' increased exponentially and became multidirectional, thus creating a more complex dialog.
CD release is slated for the future.
2008, May 15 - Conversations in Music: Solo Piano
2009, May 15 - Conversations in Music: Dance