The Paul Bailey Ensemble is a self-described “alternative / classical garage band” busy these last few years in and around Los Angeles. Though Bailey (The bulky but sharp-looking fella in the center of the photo, surrounded by some of the PBE posse) gets naming rights and creates a large amount of the featured music, the ensemble performs works by a number of other like-minded composers, too — most living, a few dead guys as well. That “like-mind” is post-minimal, with equal parts 1980s minimalism, 1680s Purcell, and heavy doses of the rock-band riff factor (though there’s usually no drumkit in the ensemble, there’s almost always electric bass and guitar).
The way Bailey tells it, he’s …had an eclectic musical career since moving to Los Angeles from Wichita, Kansas in 1989. A trained classical and jazz trombonist, he started his career as a staff musician at Disneyland. In 1995, he resurrected the music program at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. During his tenure, the band won numerous awards and was recognized as one of the most outstanding music programs in the city of Los Angeles. He is now adjunct Professor of Music Education and Music Theory at California State University, Fullerton.
In 2005 Rex Reason interviewed Paul for the OC Weekly, and I can’t think of a better way to explain Bailey and his ensemble, than in few more of his own words:
OC Weekly : So you left Kansas to become a professional musician in California, and you ended up . . . at Disney. How was that?
Paul Bailey: It’s Disney. Anything anyone else has said? It’s true. I was trained to be a musician, I practiced very hard, and I got there, and I basically had to make farting noises on my trombone and play show tunes. At Disney, you don’t have a choice. We played the same 12 songs for four years.
OCW: Is that what drove you to become a teacher?
PB: Being a teacher is the only way I can be a composer and a musician and not have my soul taken out of me. Being paid to play trombone or being paid to write music, I have to worry about who’s going to pay me next. Now, in a sense, I have no filter. I can write whatever I want. It can be shitty, but at least it’s what I want.
OCW: So explain why you want to do what you do.
PB: I’m 36. Are people my age supposed to listen to pop music their whole lives? The whole music industry is set up to please a 17-year-old kid. I don’t mind listening to that stuff, but am I supposed to live my life through the eyes of a 17-year-old child?
OCW: But you told me earlier how much you like Weezer.
PB: I love Weezer. They’re one of my favorite bands, but it would be false of me to write pop songs or rock songs. Is rock and pop music the only way you can express yourself in today’s culture? If I had drums, we’d be a rock band. Right now, it’s very deliberate—I’m not a rock band, although I use rock instruments
OCW: So is this something closer to an orchestra?
PB: Fuck the orchestra. Let’s burn that puppy down and start over. The orchestra’s proper place is the museum. The idea you’re getting some cultural experience that’s going to make your life better and it’s going to expand your mind is total bullshit.
OCW: Then how do you reconcile the two forms?
PB: There’s the technical aspect where I can say, academically, we’re not modernist music. We believe in stuff that has the same chords as Weezer, the Beatles or Radiohead. I’m choosing to deal with music I grew up with and that interests me. But I don’t want to make people go through all these things to decide whether they like it or not. In this big piece I wrote, there might be a message, but the actual music takes very little to understand. You don’t need to listen to Michael Nyman or Steve Reich or Phillip Glass to listen to my music—although it’s based on them. You don’t need to have 20 years of musical history in your mind to listen to stuff I write.
The PBE website has more info, and lots of music to hear, watch, and purchase, so go/do/hear/buy. Their next performance is as part of the line-up for RealMusic 2008, kicking off at 7pm June 21st at Whittier College (on the way from LA to the big OC, yo…). Also on the bill are plenty of other like- and unlike-minds, like Steve Moshier’s Liquid Skin Ensemble, John Marr/Brother Mallard, Susan Asbjornson, Brian Kehlenbach and Melody Versoza. All this for not more than a ten and a little gas money, what could be better?
I wouldn’t say “consigned” to the museum as if it is something horrid. The garbage, etc. It is a musical museum for the most part is it not? There are always exceptions. Marc Chan was played at Carnagie Hall and he’s pretty damn young. It would be tough for anything else to match the accoustic quality.
Thanks…I’m in the process of getting LS’s web site up, should be up within the next two weeks…don’t know Phil…the ‘pretty music’ tag offends international-style new musicos, that’s why I use it…besides, being a SoCal composer has fostered this “point of view” (Harold Budd, Terry Riley, CRMO, etc.)..does Phil fit the profile?
I enjoyed getting to know about Paul and hearing some of his music. Too bad that the article included orchestra-bashing. I’m not convinced that the orchestra should be consigned “to the museum.”
Hey Steve M.
I’m not a big fan of minimalism but your pieces, especially Only the Cubans & They Had No Plows are pretty nifty and groovy (to quote Mr. Greg Brady). Nice work! BTW…do you know Phil Curtis?
Good to know, but facial hair makes me itch. What if I wore a top hat, an ode to Abe.
* Courses between 1-2 daily, take notes
Keep it bookmarked, Joe; maybe Mr. Moshier will get some real info up there Along with Lloyd Rodgers and William Houston (Google ’em) we’ll have another piece on the web of the worthy puzzle that was late-20th c. LA minimalism. Meantime we can revisit Moshier and pals through this everybody-should-have CD:
http://www.lloydrodgers.com/crmo.html
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
academics play with pretty facial hair music in subway restrooms
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
status issues are present day appearance issues which cannot be moved beyond
serious as a silk fez lined with nylon academics sprouting amethyst SoCal composers
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
pretty music anyone…
BTW Steve M… great and informative website. Bookmarked for life.
What’s with the weight and appearance issues?…Can’t we move beyond?…or is that too serious?…Figures…’academics’ always play with ‘facial hair’ – never attack ‘present’ status issues…Take a cue from SoCal composers…DO IT!…don’t get excited…no attack issues…’pretty music’ anyone?
PB has not always been bulky and sharp-looking. I remember many years ago when he too was a beanpole!
Nah, Joe, I’m going after all those twitchy, pathetic bushy-eyebrowed drummers instead… 😉
In the past, Steve has been grossly insensitive to both the beanpole and skeletor communities. It comes as no surprise to me that now he takes his disjointed, angular, and angry outlook out on the bulky but sharp-looking community. Who’s next; the dimwitted, archaic, and muscle bound protozoan ghetto???? My tears and prayers to all concerned.
I didn’t say anything about P.B.’s intellect; I let his own smart words fill in there. The rest is simple description (like I myself am a cross between Skeletor and a beanpole…). If you’re seeing an insult, it just isn’t there.
Thanks for the pointer to this, just the kind of thing I’m looking for.
Btw, “bulky but sharp-looking” ? Do you always comment on muscians’ appearances and relate that to their intellect?
yay down with musical eliteism!
mr. bacon,
you are right on (and media savvy) about my group name which doesn’t quite fit anymore. in the beginning i was just trying to get past the much of the ‘affectations’ of new music ensembles and stick to ‘truth in advertising’. over the past few years the ‘paul bailey ensemble’ has started to sound pretty ‘ars antigua’ to me, so as much as possible we call ourselves the ‘pbe’, which is the way we have always referred to ourselves privately.
cheers,
paul
—
http://twitter.com/pbailey
Yeah! What Steve said! 🙂
Are you kiddin’…IT’S BACK!…teleological lives…Harold Budd, Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra, itsnotyouitsme, the list goes on…no prison – accept the “climate of opinon”…”a rock falls”…nothin’ to be afraid of…’pretty music’…the Way?
AMEN to the words of PB. Still, if he’s so into shedding the classical stigma, why call his group ‘The Paul Bailey Ensemble?’ I like what he’s doing, though – right now, I’d give more props to groups like the Steve Martland Band, but I’m sure the PB Ensemble will continue to develop as a really good group. He has great ideas and influences – his notes for Fearless Leader, for example, reference Ligeti’s desire to escape both tonality and the avant-garde (similar to his impulse in the height of po-mo music to transcend modernism and postmodernism). “Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, its just not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I cannot escape.” Although, I believe Ligeti did accomplish his goal with his piano etudes.
I just discovered them to thru a simple myspace invite. Great stuff. Check out their take on the “sweater song” @ http://www.myspace.com/becausetheyaredead
Great post, Steve. Paul is the real deal, and a very nice person to boot! We got together in LA last Friday before I had to catch the red-eye home, and had an enjoyable discussion about music (the sushi was also very enjoyable). Paul does a lot with new technologies and also is involved with several music groups in the LA area, and his work should certainly be known to anyone here at S21.