a blog about the alternative classical garage band, the paul bailey ensemble
i'm finally getting back to reality after the amazing week performance last week.
it's been a good week for the pbe.
Reviewed by Josef Woodard
January 21st, 2005
(Copyright (c) 2005 Los Angeles Times)
After his concert at the
Fair enough: The cheeky description points to the group's self- reliant, can-do spirit and its intention to mix high and low culture, art and pop. Fittingly, the setting was the casual Sierra Room, where the audience sat at tables as if in a new-music cabaret.
A balanced grouping of strings, woodwinds, guitar, bass, keyboard, vibraphone and sometimes vocalists, the ensemble consists of classically trained and impressively focused players who create an appealing, collective sound. Bailey, a trombonist, educator and composer, formed the group in 2002 as a do-it-yourself forum outside the usual and limited channels of classical music presentation.
Stylistically, the ensemble is very much locked into the Minimalist groove. The
In the concert's first half, instrumental pieces from Bailey's suite "Summerland" and guitarist Sean R. Ferguson's "Chopping Tool" offered their rhythmically chugging energies, more about ensemble machinery than melodic or thematic development. These fed directly from the inspirational trough of such classic Minimalist recordings as Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" and Philip Glass' "Glassworks." The inclusion of electric guitar (
This program's main attraction came after intermission, with the world premiere of Bailey's ambitious "Retrace Our Steps," ostensibly written for mezzo-soprano Nicole Baker. She sang key parts in the four-movement work, with text that included cryptic poetics by Gertrude Stein and socio-philosophical tracts by Guy Debord and Jenny Bitner. But Baker ultimately became a team player and folded into the democratic mesh of the ensemble's conjuring of nine instrumentalists and four additional vocalists.
One unsettling aspect of an otherwise engaging concert was the canned texture of sound processed through microphones, allowing acoustic instruments to compete with electronic ones. Then again, that is a hallmark of Minimalism, which borrows from pop's sound palette and equipment list on the path to a new classical paradigm. In short, the Paul Bailey Ensemble is out of the garage and on the way up.
it's 7:30 am and i don't want last night to be over.
name: b. paul bailey
i found this quiz while browsing the blog magnificent octopus. kind of serendipitous, i thought i might be a .ogg.
Name: Kyoko Kamei
name: victor lawrence
introducing one of the newest members of the group, bass (vocalist) Paul Cummings.
Name: Scott McIntosh
name--SAM FORMICOLA
Susan (Sue Bee) will be performing Berio's "Laborynthus II" tonight (jan 11th) with the LA Phil in the Green Umbrella New Music Concert Series
there must be something in the air, or i'm in a real hypersensitive place. many of my favorite bloggers are musing on some really intersting topics. so many, that my head hurts and wish the earth's rotation would slow to ponder them more.
and the next thought was -- bingo. It’s not just music critics who can be condescending to their subjects. The problem is an inherent potential pitfall to all journalism. I had been aware of this but had forgotten it, as I’d been brooding on my critical “turn-offs” in recent days -- Chuck Klosterman’s habitual condescension to musicians, Greil Marcus’s opposite assumption that music is an esoteric mystery religion of which only a select few mysteriously annointed musicians are worthy. Marcus can be very condescending to musicians whom he seeks to cast to outer darkness, which appears to be most of them. As the self-appointed doorkeeper of his religious mysteries, he remains outside the mystery himself, and he can be positively hostile in his insistence that ordinary listeners and readers aren’t anywhere close to getting in the door. We’re somewhere out in the forsaken, graceless fields. Marcus portrays himself as at least within watching distance of the ceremonies -- close enough to lip read, but not enough to hear.greg sandow posts about the realities of opera seria performance practice.
Then, I said, we could look at opera's past, at the way opera seria was performed in 18th century Italy. We imagine that Baroque music was restrained and dignified, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because, I said, nobody would believe me if I described in my own words what opera seria was like, I quoted Richard Taruskin, from his new, formidable, and feisty Oxford History of Western Music. Here's some of what Taruskin says:
The liberties singers were expected to take with the written music, and had to take or lose all respect, would be thought a virtually inconceivably desecration today. But that was the very least of it. [One castrato] was actually arrested and imprisoned…for "disturbing the other performers, acting in a manner bordering on lasciviousness (on stage) with one of the female singers, conversing with the spectators in the boxes from the stage, ironically echoing whichever member of the company was singing an aria"…[The] audience…was famed throughout Europe for its sublime inattention.… [As one writer reports] "noise levels astonished diarists from abroad, nobility arrived with servants who cooked who meals, talked, played [at cards[, and relieved themselves in the antechambers that stood in back of each lavish box.…
There is no comparable genre in classical music today. The modern counterpart of the opera seria castrato is the improvising jazz ("scat") or pop singer.…However inattentive during recitatives…the audience sprang to attention when the primo uomo held forth, egging him on with applause and spontaneous shots of encouragement at each vocal feat.
I wasn't saying all this to make a sensation, I said. Instead I wanted to suggest that if opera was more like this today, then things would be better for composers. Opera would be more informal and more contemporary. It would be more popular; there would be much more of it; and no matter how populist the operatic mainstream might be, there would be plenty of room on the fringes for art (just as there is in pop music today).jeff harrington at beepsnort blogs about the idea of musical legitmacy. what is it today that says you "made it"? sales, prizes, press, good reviews? can the freedom of the net and consumer culture coexist?
its nice to know that we are all fighting the same dragons.Two worlds are colliding. The net music world, with its assumptions of popular validity and sharing, typically beyond fair use standards, and the old music world, with its hierarchies, promotional methodologies and assumptions about fat paybacks. I believe, of course, as an early net music adopter, that the net music world is destined to win; one can't fight free music; the net will encompass everything at some point and become the global library.
So we're fighting for what now? Sales as a symbol of legitimacy? Print reviews or awards as a symbol of quality? That is bordering on pointless now. A write up now, a feature in say, Computer Music Journal or even Rolling Stone haha would produce in my life nothing. I've heard that even Putlitzer prizes now no longer guarantee a string of commissions.
Without the metric of the sale, legitimacy has become the playground of the elites. In the contemporary classical world, its increasingly reverting back to the playground of the idle rich. I don't believe its unconnected to point out that the first composer of my generation to win the incredibly prestigious Grawemeyer prize (first awards went to Ligeti, Lutoslawski and Takemitsu) is coincidentally a multi-millionaire, George Tsontakis. I'm not sure how it helped; he's a good composer IMO, but I am absolutely certain that without his fortune he'd likely be in the same boat as the rest of us poor mugs. Nowhere. The rich have to hide their connectedness or their privilege would be exposed. And the rich, still control, to an astonishing degree the playing field that we play on, when we engage the real world. Another reason the real music world, within the arts, is crumbling. We want a world without favorites. We want a world that rewards attentiveness not mere connectedness. We want a world where what I say to my bud matters, that artist X does in fact rock even though he's a poor shmuck working at Kinko's during the day.
nicole is mostly responsible for the creation of the new vocal extravaganza, retrace our steps. she is great singer, collaborator and supporter (and she brought me other great singers also), i would a poor shlub without her.
so step right up.... singing nightly in the la, but commuting daily to the oc and maintaining a relative level of sanity. NICOLE BAKER
nicole baker, mezzo soprano,
originally uploaded by pbailey.
name: Nicole Baker
occupation(s): Lecturer Cal State Fullerton; director of music, St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, Singer.
training: M.F.A. in Voice and Ph.D. in Music (history), UCLA. B.A., Political Science, Wellesley College., Studied voice with Kari Windingstad, Helen Marcus, Carmen Tejada, Cynthia Hoffman and Kathleen Darragh.
current projects: whatever I'm working on!
upcoming concerts: Lots of stuff with the LA Master Chorale. Whatever Paul Bailey's doing.
favorite performance: John Adams' El Nino; Steve Reich's Desert Music
what i do outside of music: very little
favorite movies: Turning Point; Network; Sweet Liberty; Fantasia; heck I don't remember
music currently listening to: Medieval Harp Music; Jethro Tull Xmas Album; Messiean; Pomerium's Music of the Hours
favorite reading: I'll get back to you....
you moved the pot before the coffee stopped brewing, do you smell the mountains or the burro: I smell the moldy sponge I use to wipe up the coffee
schoenberg or stravinsky: Stravinsky
glass or reich: Reich
paper or plastic: Mozart
when did you join the pbe: At Paul's Master's Recital (2002?), and then I was hooked.
other thoughts: I'll get back to you on that, too!
this is a composer’s blog, so i guess i should be writing about composing. on the other hand, i'm a pretty lucky guy. it’s very important to write music and be able to have it played immediately in rehearsal. the feedback of the group (nonverbal and verbal) gives me confirmation on the level of success of the various sections. i always go into a reading with a general idea of what may not work and why, and i am usually surprised by other sections that come out better and/or worse than i predicted. every once in while a piece comes out almost whole, i would argue those are the special ones. they seem to be the pieces you like most. part of being any type of artist is the realization that we don’t do that all the time, if we are lucky we get to kick out a few good ones. i could talk about technique (and probably put you right to sleep), but (for me) the process of creating a piece of music encompasses the full range of emotions.
the initial step of choosing the elements the piece has/deals with is the hardest. (forest
the next part is pure heaven.
once created my boundaries (it’s probably better to call this a musical universe, up is down, and left is right) i get to live there for a while and play with all the possibilities. break the rules, create new ones, change my mind, and admit I was too ambitious, surprise myself with some happy coincidences. it’s kind of like a musical version of sim city. as this process moves along the piece takes on a life of its own. there is a point where it’s not a creative venture anymore, but a practical one where i equip it for life on its own. what’s the best way to score it for my group? is that section really playable? should i really make the strings play in 5 flats to setup that great enharmonic relationship later in the piece? the practical composer (and voice of my mentor) voice rises from a slow burn to intense vertigo.
the last part rehearsing, performing and promoting. it’s what i spend 2/3 of my time doing. the overall composing/rehearsing promoting/performing process comes out to probably 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration and 10% pure joy. this weekend was one of those times that was all perspiration. more on that later..
other notes
fellow bloggers devin hurd and robert gable comment on my ginger or mary anne pop culture logic. i never said you had to answer either or. both make interesting and thoughtful points at hurdaudio and aworks.
my wife deb and i celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary on saturday. i was happy to make it through the day without any pbe related projects or crisis. two years ago, i promised (won’t do that again) that there would be no distractions and ended up making phone calls to get a vibraphone sub on my way to dinner. thank goodness she loves me.
should have known that what started out as a relaxing sunday would quickly became a nightmare. there was a mix-up with my copyist and instead of leisurely binding the new vocal scores, i had 1 ½ hours to finish 3 hours of work, i frantically added the text to the new act 1 score, created a very rough draft and only had time to bring two barely readable copies so i could open the gallery before my vocalists got there (i was almost out of ink, note to self need to keep more on hand). the rest of the scores were loose, but had been properly proofread and were error free. the whole mess probably cost us about an extra 25 minutes in a 2 hour rehearsal. luckily there were no major errors and the new parts were useful enough to tell me that the act I changes were good. we are having an ensemble only rehearsal tomorrow night. i hope for that to be smoother, but we are having these biblical rainstorms...
name Marlon Luna
scott mcintosh and i will be appearing on the "primespot" online radio show tonight at 9pm. our segment should be early in the program. because of the small studio space we are not going to perform, but it should be an interesting interview. KaRi (the hostess) found the group online and was intrigued by our music. scott and i are going to do our best to explain the "alternative classical" scene in socal. (this what i am calling it this week)
name - sean r. ferguson
name Sean McDermott
Hey there folks, it's Matt the bassist. So I'm here to introduce myself and I'm probably first because I'm the only lamer hanging out on the internet late enough to get Paul's late night emails....so on to the pertinent info.
i know, i'm sorry i promised that this would be the finished post on summerland program notes. i'm not the type to be a slacker on anything, i have fallen behind translating them from boring academic leaning composer/musician speak to something a highly intellegent and well read blogosphere person can understand without gagging on their charles shaw wine and brie.
the recording went well on thursday. like most recordings it took a while to warmup and get used to the room. i was pretty worried that we were going to run out of time and complete only half of the session. between 10pm-midnight we made it through most of acts 3 and 4 only needing two takes for each section.
a musician/composer/educator living in Los Angeles, Ca.
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