September 26, 2007

Paul Bailey Ensemble at home in Fullerton
The composer's self-named alternative classical group plays an entertaining program of minimalist works at Meng Concert Hall.
By TIMOTHY MANGAN
The Orange County Register

On the FAQ page of the Paul Bailey Ensemble's Web site (paulbaileyensemble.org) the group is dubbed an "alternative-classical garage band." One wonders what that is until one hears it and wonders no longer. It's a good description. This is a flexibly sized chamber ensemble, locally based, made up of friends and colleagues who have mostly studied at Cal State Fullerton. Tuesday night's incarnation of the group, when it performed at Meng Concert Hall on campus, included an electric guitar, electric bass, keyboards, clarinet and trombone (the last played by the composer himself, Paul Bailey). It makes a funky, gritty sound, but it also capable of a warm euphony.

I would say that Bailey's music is minimalist, with the proviso that the composer himself, like so many minimalists, doesn't like that label. His favorite composers, though, include the minimalists Michael Nyman, Glass, Reich and Riley, as well as Satie, Monteverdi, Bach and Palestrina. His own music combines a minimalist's interest in repetition, motion and simple harmony with Baroque bass lines. In fact, the passacaglia, a set of variations on a repeated melodic bass line, popular with Baroque composers, is Bailey's preferred métier.

This style was perhaps most explicit in the opening number, "Cheap Admiration," written in 2005 and based on a work by the 17th century composer Johann Pezel. A fuzz guitar got a little rhythmic riff going, a Baroque progression with a syncopated groove, and the other instruments joined in, layering and interweaving lines, spinning, turning and floating.

Bailey's music doesn't put on airs. It's easy to listen to and to understand the first time. The composer seems to take joy in the simple motion of music, in plain harmonies and melodic scraps as ordinary as do re mi. The fascination comes from hearing it all spin around and work itself out, like a load of mixed laundry in a dryer, or flames in a fireplace.

His music does express something, though. His "Fearless Leader" had a Glassian hypnotic melancholy, a growing in tension, then release. "Eye for Optical Theory," based on a Nyman theme, scampered along quickly and jazzily and was decorated with soulful trombone scoops.

"Life's Too Short," the second of an eventual trilogy, added three vocalists, who talked and keened a dryly witty, existential text, made more so by both its matter-of-fact repetition, lyrical limning and uneven meter. The trilogy's finale will be "Life's Too Long."

The New York-based trio Real Quiet (cello, piano, percussion) were guests on the program and joined the PBE for Bailey's "Principal of Sufficient Irritation," a piece that features a short ostinato riff tossed all around like a hot potato. The work morphs and builds (at one point finding itself in a quasi Bo Diddley groove) and is one of the composer's most ambitious and engrossing.

On its own Real Quiet added three pieces, by Annie Gosfield, Phil Kline and Marc Mellits. Somehow, I found these pieces, accomplished and polished though they were, less satisfying, perhaps because they took themselves so seriously. Gosfield's "Wild Pitch" encompassed aggressive allegros, lonely dreams and quarter-tone decoration. Kline's "The Last Buffalo," a three-movement homage to Hunter Thompson, juxtaposed long-arched cello solos with a motoric central movement in a heavy tread. The three of the four movements performed of Mellits' "Tight Sweater" seemed mere etudes in hopping and grinding minimalism.

But then came the grand finale, Frederic Rzewski's 1969 "Les Moutons de Panurge," which requires a touch of explanation. Both ensembles joined in for this ebullient gambit, written for "any number of musicians." "Panurge" consists of a single melodic line of 65 notes which the players are instructed to perform in additive fashion, first 1, then 1-2, then 1-2-3, and so on until the end. They begin together but invariably get off, the composer instructing, "if you get lost, stay lost." Also, the tempo continuously accelerates. The result is a kind of mad "Row, row, row your boat," of canons gone wild and off track, of "Bolero" on steroids.

It's not mayhem, though, the instructions providing for the relentless rewinding of the melody with a single note added to it each time; the listener is in a space where the music dances around him like so many bouncing atoms. To my knowledge, there's not another piece quite like "Panurge" and these musicians had rollicking good fun with it. So did we.

The Paul Bailey Ensemble

* With: Real Quiet
* Where: Meng Concert Hall, Cal State Fullerton
* Next: Real Quiet performs at the Carlsbad Music Festival at 8 p.m. on Sept. 28
* How much: $8-$25
* Call: 760-809-5501
* Online: http://www.carlsbadmusicfestival.org