Don Bailey has never experienced life without music. That statement doesn’t just refer to his fifty years as a music professor, forty of them right here at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, that literally applies to all but the infant phase of his entire existence on Earth.
“My mom and dad were musicians, and they would rehearse their band at our house,” he says. “I remember being four or five years old and grabbing an oatmeal box and playing drums or trying to get some rubber bands strapped around a shoe box and play guitar. I just loved it. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Don’s parents indulged their son’s early desire to play, making him an unofficial member of the group as a preschooler. It wasn’t long before he was a standout in school-based music programs in his native New Jersey and after that, his father dropped the “honorary” tag from his role as a band member.
“Where I grew up, they started music programs earlier than some schools,” he says. “I got involved in band when I was in fifth grade. When I turned thirteen, I was sitting in with my dad’s band, Jack Bailey and the Mellow Tones. Dig it, matching jackets, the whole look. At fourteen, I’m wearing this red glitter jacket feeling like ‘Don’t I look cool.’”
The young clarinet player wasn’t just a nepo hire; the band was serious business, and Don was expected to either keep up or ship out, an attitude that yielded a world-class musical education even as he switched from clarinet to saxophone in high school.
“They didn’t use sheet music; they just said, ‘OK, play the song.’ I had to figure it out,” he says. “I didn’t think about this at the time, but that stretched my ears.”
By fourteen, Don had earned his union card and was regularly playing gigs with his father’s band throughout New Jersey and New York before studying music education at Iowa Wesleyan College and later the University of Northern Iowa.
At one point he saw an open teaching position that would prove, thus far, the last job interview he’d ever sit for.
“I saw an opening at Westark Community College for a jazz-oriented position, which I loved, because it would let me do lots of different things,” he says. “You don’t see a lot of that, but it was my expertise, so I jumped on it.”
Arriving in Fort Smith, Don immediately saw the opportunity to spread the art form he loved. Before long, Westark’s jazz band would regularly play at local schools, exposing a wide cross-section of prospective students to the uniquely American musical genre.
“A lot of the programs in the area did not have jazz bands. We would go and perform at these schools and try to light the place on fire so that the kids would say, ‘I want to do that,’ you know?
“The other thing that I was pretty proud of is I started a summer jazz camp, but instead of just making it a typical jazz camp, I opened it up to all instruments. That reached a lot of kids who thought, ‘Well, I don’t play a jazz instrument,’ but I’d go, everything’s a jazz instrument, just get over here. The kids loved it. ‘I play oboe. Can I play jazz?’ Sure, man, bring it, we gotcha.”
In addition to legions of music students, the apples didn’t fall far from the Bailey family tree. Don and his wife Terri, herself a collegiately trained jazz pianist, produced musically inclined children. Don taught each of them, but it didn’t take a musical lifer such as he to see there was something extra special in their middle child, Shane.
“As soon as he could get his hands on drumsticks, you know, he was playing at two and three. We actually got him a baby drum set at four, and he was playing, doing crazy things,” Don says. “I’m a prejudiced proud dad, but as a music professional, I can tell you he was just ripping it to shreds by the time he was ten. He was playing in our band when he was twelve.”
Shane quickly outgrew the instruction of local teachers, prompting Don to seek out the head of the jazz program at the University of Tulsa, and asked if the professor would consider taking on the young drummer.
“I knew what he was thinking because we hear this all the time in our business: ‘Oh, my son’s incredible,’ and he’s not, you know?” Don says. “He nodded politely and he took him and he called me after the lesson. He said, ‘Hey, I just want you to know something. I’ve been teaching here at the University of Tulsa for whatever number of years, and I’ve never had a kid like yours. This is going be so exciting.’”
With an extraordinary musical career seemingly ahead of him, Shane’s life took a heartbreaking and unexpected turn in June 2013 when the twenty-five-year-old suffered a seizure and died. The loss was all the more shocking because he had shown no signs of health problems, and to this day, Don says there has been no definitive explanation for what caused his son’s untimely passing.
Not that Don father is keen on allowing the final moments of his life to stand as the defining elements of who Shane was. That honor is reserved for his son’s passion for others, especially outsiders and people who lacked the means or opportunity to fulfil their own talent. With that as motivation, Don started the nonprofit Shane Bailey Memorial Music Society, which supports young musicians through scholarships, clinics, performances and educational opportunities.
“I think the most important part of Shane’s legacy is that he loved to help young musicians reach the next level in the musical journey,” Don says. “He loved to teach, he loved to encourage, he would give away cymbals or parts of his kit to kids if they didn’t have what they needed. He just breathed life and encouragement into them, particularly students in need.”
The organization’s annual fundraiser, The Shane Bailey Memorial Bash, is a musical event that celebrates Shane’s life while supporting the nonprofit’s mission. Don, who still writes letters to his son, sees the effort as a fitting tribute to Shane’s bottomless well of love for all people.
“He had a heart for those who didn’t fit into society, because he didn’t really fit in. He was different than the kids around him and so he had tremendous compassion for others,” Don says. “One of his mantras was ‘No one has the right to judge anyone else. We’re all people, we’re all flawed, we’re all human.’ That was the fabric of his character.”
Today, Don remains immersed in music as UAFS director of jazz studies, director of the award-winning Jazz Catz and an active performer throughout the region, including with his own Don Bailey Combo.
“You know, we’ve had to reinvent ourselves because if you’re billed as a jazz combo, that’s what you get hired to do. We’ve reinvented ourselves to be a little bit more marketable; we’ve added a pop set and we do classic rock,” he says. “I want to do more writing in the future. I wrote a rock symphony and a jazz symphony that was performed by the Fort Smith Symphony. That was cool.”
At this he pauses for a beat, as if pondering how far music has brought him, myriad stages yet to be played. Retirement may be on the horizon, but Don has no plans to stop making music.
“It would be a little different not working, after all this time,” he says. “Fortunately, audiences here are so supportive. We still play a lot of gigs. I genuinely love the people of Fort Smith.”
The annual Shane Bailey Memorial Bash is scheduled for September 11 at The Bakery District in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Find details on Facebook, Shane Bailey Memorial Music Society.
