Students perform for naming of the new West Campus Mears building
Originally published in the Valencia Voice
While employees of Mears Transportation and faculty and staff of Valencia Community College's West Campus gathered together to celebrate the renaming of the Student Services Building, they were delighted by the jazz stylings of Valencia's very own jazz trio, Tuesday, Nov. 16.
Bassist Nasrulah Rahbari, keyboardist Patrick “PD Midnight” Dunn, and drummer Joey Lanna, all students based out of the East Campus, jammed outside of the newly-named Paul Mears Sr. Building, entertaining such company as Bob Segal and Teresa Jacobs.
“No one's going to guarantee success but myself,” said Rahbari. “That's when I decided to go to college. That's when I decided to go to Valencia.”
In high school Rahbari had no focus or experience in instrumental music. “In high school I was actually a choir kid, and it wasn't until after that I really started working on playing.”
“My mother was a piano teacher,” said Dunn. “I've been learning music since I was in the womb,” he said with a smile.
“I started learning music in sixth grade,” said Lanna. “I stayed at the school from sixth to seventh grade, but it had such a bad music program, and it wasn't until I was in eighth grade that I truly started getting into music. By tenth grade, I was in both Wind Ensemble and Jazz Band.”
The young group of musicians, Rahbari, 24, Dunn, 21, and Lanna, 23, met and started per- forming together only a year ago, but already the guys agree they plan on making music for some time to come.
The group agrees that Valencia was the unifying factor when the trio first started playing together.
“I was originally in recording engineering,” said Lanna. “Then I switched to music performance then finally music education.”
Being the closest in age, both Rahbari and Lanna met each other long before the trio ever came together as students at Freedom High school. Four years after graduation Rahbari had become a regular band member of the group “A Palace in Persia.”
“I have been with the band for over four years,” said Rahbari. “The the last two years with that band is when we came out with the album 'Metaphonemia.’” Also, during that time is when Lanna started playing with the trio's bassist.
With over 35 years of combined musical experience the group of 20-somethings have a very defined taste of and philosophy on music.
“When you play the kind of music we play, you have to be open minded,” said Lanna.
But even with their relaxed approach toward the art form, all three agreed that music required intense practice and training.
“I like listening to technically advanced music,” said Rahabari. “When you want to get that sound you really have to put in that grind. The deeper you can go the more you can express.”
The group believes that improvisation is like being fluent in another language and having a conversation with another person.
“You would practice to give a speech but you wouldn't practice to have a conversation with someone,” said Dunn.
Self-described as a classic jazz trio with modern musical influences the group feels very strongly about the direction their music is going. They are currently working on getting the trio recorded.
“We have no reason to stop now,” said Rahbari. “When things in my life were so uncertain the best thing I ever did was go to school.”
To learn more about the guys and their music make sure to visit www.apalaceinpersia.com or e-mail the trio at TrickDunn@yahoo.com. Avail- able for any event or any style of music the group can sometimes be heard playing at Natura Cafe off of University Blvd.
No comments:
Post a Comment