‘Fortunes’ is a spontaneous compositional concept based on immediate and undiscussed interpretations of evocative song titles. Mike first explored this idea in his band Conundrum around 1999/2000. This band was comprised of Mike on bass, Jacob Duncan on alto sax, for a short while the tenor saxophonist Dave Monsch, and a rotating drum chair including Chris Michael, Bill Campbell and Dan Vonnegut. For an extended time the ensemble played weekly, first at Oasis in NYC’s East Village and later at Nimrod in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Each night Mike would bring a new list of evocative song titles, and Conundrum would spontaneously compose each song as the title was announced. Among the more memorable titles were Stickers Are a School Girl’s Herione, Whiskey Nightmare and Mike’s Carcass Could Easily Fit Inside Jake’s Carcass (contributed by drummer Bill Campbell). The audience of regulars was never informed that these pieces had not yet been composed, and it seems they never figured it out. Proof came in the form of requests on one week for a particular piece from the week before. The concept for ‘Fortunes’ uses the same basic premise. Mike has collected 100′s of fortunes from fortune cookies over many years. Each member is given a small pile of them. They take turns drawing them. The ‘player’ who draws a fortune reads it aloud and then begins the piece. There is no discussion whatsoever about style, tempo, key, mood. They just use the fortune as a jumping off point and as an evocative title. They listen to each other for the development of themes. Truly the only rules are to listen and compose. Mike uses the word ‘compose’ to suggest that they are not just improvising aimlessly on their instruments, but that they are open to discovering and playing a specific role within each spontaneous composition in order to instrumentally evoke the feeling of the title. Whether they are successful is totally subjective. FYI, they never listened back to anything in the studio. There was no point. Each title is discarded forever once performed live or in the studio.
Mike Davis – acoustic bass
Jacob Duncan – alto saxophone
Jason Tiemann – drums
http://mikedavismakesmusic.com
