Composing a coda: OBMS to hold concert in honor of longtime band director Walter Bailey

In 1997, Walter Bailey laid down his baton as the Ormond Beach Middle School Band director, a position he held for 31 years. 

Though 26 years have passed, Bailey’s impact has not been forgotten: On Wednesday, May 17, the OBMS band will play a concert in his honor. 

Bailey, 81, was a legend in his day, said OBMS Director Sonya Shearer. Though she was never a student of his, having gone to Campbell Middle School, Bailey’s influence on his students went beyond the walls of his band room.

“When I got to Mainland [High School], all of the first chair, best players in the whole county were pretty much from Ormond Beach Junior High,” Shearer recalled.

Shearer is finishing her first year as band director at OBMS, and the more she thought about Bailey’s legacy, the more she wondered if there were people in the community who would like to see him again.

“I thought it’d be great to honor him as being the main person who represents the band here at Ormond Middle School, and we’ve had a good year, so it’d be a good year to do it,” Shearer said.

This year, the OBMS symphonic and jazz bands won superiors at MPA, their music performance assessments. The jazz band’s rhythm section also won the Best Overall Rhythm Section award at Lakeside Jazz Festival in Port Orange this past April.

Putting students first

Bailey, originally of Waycross, Georgia, moved to Volusia County in the 1960s. He graduated from Stetson University with a bachelor of music education, obtained a master’s degree from East Carolina University and started working at Ormond Beach Junior High, now known as OBMS, in 1966. 

After that, he never taught at any other school. He loved OBMS, said his daughter Erin Bailey.

“It was always about the student,” Erin Bailey said. “It was never about him being out front — his name in lights. It was always about the kids and them being the best that they could be, and that was all he really expected. Some of us had talent, some of us practiced a lot, some of us were somewhere in between.” 

Erin Bailey was her father’s student too, as was her sister Kristen. She played the bassoon. Her sister played the oboe. Both started as clarinet players in the after-school band program Bailey held in the 1980s at Tomoka Elementary with Earl Williams, the band director at Mainland High School at the time.

“We were part of the band life probably as soon as we were born,” Erin Bailey said.

And band life with Walter Bailey was fun, recalled former student Marianne Burley, who has been president of the OBMS band board for the past four years.

“He was silly,” Burley said. “He had a tuft of hair that he would blow on. He was a trumpet player, and so he would purposely mess up because he’s teaching beginners how to play trumpet ... He would just do silly things to get our attention and try to make it fun.” 

That move of blowing his thinning hair out of his face earned him a nickname — Uncle Fuzzy. The nickname reveals the kind of bond Bailey shared with his students, said Peter Waidelich, assistant chair and director of instrumental music at Daytona State College, who is also a former student of Bailey’s.

“He was just a fun-loving guy — always had a smile on his face and always had loads and loads of time with kids,” Waidelich said.

He wasn’t known as Uncle Fuzzy when Dallas Tucker had him as a band director in the mid-to-late 1960s, making him one of Bailey’s earliest students at OBMS. Anyone who spends five minutes talking to Bailey, Tucker said, can see the type of person he is: warm and embracing.

“He ended up being the yardstick that I measured all of my other teachers by,” Tucker said. “He was a phenomenal teacher, and he loved all the kids — even the ones that were a challenge.”

'He developed players'

Before he became a band director, Bailey was, and still is, a trumpet player.

“He was a very, very early influence on me of what a trumpet should sound like,” Waidelich said. 

Before Bailey became Waidelich’s band director, he used to give Waidelich private lessons. 

At OBMS, Waidelich recalled, Bailey would pick up his instrument and play with the trumpet section if they had an intern or guest conductor for the day. The students would just marvel at his sound, he said.

Decades later, the roles reversed when Bailey played in Waidelich’s community band at DSC. 

And like doctors are often said to be the worst patients, band directors can often be the worst band players, he joked.

“They sometimes are cutting up and doing what they’re not supposed to be doing more than anyone else in the band,” Waidelich said. “That’s kind of like Mr. Bailey, but then again, it’s not unusual for him because he’s always like that. Mr. Bailey always had a twinkle in his eye and a sort of little bit of a devilish grin on his face. He was always up to something.” 

He ended up being the yardstick that I measured all of my other teachers by. He was a phenomenal teacher, and he loved all the kids — even the ones that were a challenge." — Dallas Tucker, former student

Tucker, a trumpet player who played gigs with Bailey even as his student, recalled one time during his second year of middle school when Bailey asked him to play with a brass choir at a local Ormond Beach church. 

The choir was composed of two trumpets and two trombones, and when Tucker got there, he asked for music. 

Bailey placed a choral hymnal sheet in front of him and told him they would be playing the alto and soprano parts. 

“I’m going, ‘But a trumpet is a B flat instrument; how’s that going to work? We’re going to be a step off.’” Tucker recalled. “He goes, ‘Oh, it’s easy. Just read it up a step and add two sharps. I looked at him and I went, ‘What?’” 

Bailey pushed his students, Tucker said. He made them leave their comfort zones, and it’s a lesson that followed Tucker throughout his playing career. 

“He didn’t teach music,” Tucker said. “He developed players.”

Bailey even played at Tucker’s wedding.  (The piece? Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D, commonly called Pachelbel’s Canon.)

Uncle Fuzzy's legacy

Bailey may have been a band director, but he never stopped being a dad, too.

“We shared our dad with over a thousand kids,” Erin Bailey said. “Thousands and thousands of kids, and we were happy to do that, and I hope that each of them has a really fond memory of his class.

It’s overwhelming to think about the number of families her father interacted with during his time at OBMS, Erin Bailey said. 

The interest in the concert to be held in his honor — that people want to come out and see him almost 30 years later — is a tribute to him all on its own, she added.

Burley played percussion in Walter Bailey’s band, and her son is a percussionist in the band today.

“I was really happy that this is coming full circle for me — to be able to see my old band director and have him see my son, it’s very exciting,” she said.

Shearer may never have had him as her director, but she does remember the first time she met him. She was in high school and they were playing in a church orchestra together for a Christmas concert. Shearer remembers feeling a sense of pride at being in the same band as Bailey.

We shared our dad with over a thousand of kids. Thousands and thousands of kids, and we were happy to do that, and I hope that each of them has a really fond memory of his class." — Erin Bailey, Walter Bailey's daughter

“To me, he’s a legend in the community, and to think I’m getting to even just be a part of that, getting to put my little piece of it, is kind of nice,” Shearer said.

Bailey, who now lives in Charleston, North Carolina, was a major building block for the band program at OBMS, Waidelich said. 

But one can’t talk about Bailey without mentioning two of his friends: Mainland High School’s former band director Earl Williams and Seabreeze High School’s former director Dave Smith. 

Daytona Beach had some of the strongest music programs in the state when they were leading their school bands, Waidelich said.

“The three of those guys were really important in this area in regards to music and music education,” he said.

When Tucker heard OBMS was holding a concert in Bailey’s honor, his first thought was: “I’ll be there.”

The pair have kept in touch over the decades, on the phone and through email. 

“Talking to him on the phone, he’s the same guy that he was back then,” Tucker said. “The kids all loved him because they knew that he cared about him.”