C2 Sunday, Feb. 17,1980 The Fresno Bee
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Paul Paul — Fresno's 'Mr. Music1
Fresno Municipal Band and
Paul Paul — the names are
almost synonymous to long-time
Fresnans.
Paul Paul joined the municipal band as a coronetist in 1914,
and became its leader in 1923, a
position he held for the next 25
years. Multitudes of Fresnans
can remember sitting on the
grass in front of the Lisenby
Memorial Bandstand in Roed-
ing Park on Sunday afternoons,
listening to concerts by the
municipal band, and up front
was Paul Paul. He was, quite
literally, "Mr. Music" in Fresno.
But Paul didn't limit his
musicianship to the municipal
band. He formed a band of his
own in about 1927, made up
mostly of members of the First
Armenian Presbyterian Church,
according to old newspaper
records. The picture above is
dated 1927, but is not identified
with either the name of the
group or of the band members.
But a good assumption can be
made that this is the church
group.
At any rate, we do know that
Paul is the distinguished-looking man in the center front. Our
thanks go to Aram Zipper for
Remember When?
By Bobbye Temple
sharing this picture with us.
Paul came to Fresno with his
family in August, 1904, one of
the thousands of Armenian
families who fled from Turkey
during the Armenian massacres. Paul was 9 at the time.
And Paul Paul was not really
his name — but that was the
way he was registered in the
Kirk Elementary School because school officials couldn't
figure out how to anglicize his
Armenian name.
He started playing coronet at
Kirk, and continued through
years at Lincoln and Emerson
elementary schools and on into
Fresno High School and through
two years at Fresno Normal
School. He had an opportunity
to attend the Conservatory of
Music in Boston but, according
to Paul in a newspaper story in
1943, "my folks did not want me
to leave Fresno. They bought
me a farm instead and I have
been more or less farm minded
ever since. You can be a farmer
and a musician, too, for you
have all the big open spaces to
practice in."
In addition to his work with
the Municipal Band and his
church group, Paul directed a
Russian comic opera company
which performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Fresno
in 1924 to 1927. Later he also
directed the Armenian American Citizens League Band.
When he wasn't making
music, Paul was busy with his
insurance business, his range
properties and his cattle and
horses. Paul also was a member and president of the Fresno
District Fair Board, and the
new amphitheater at the Fairgrounds was named the Paul
Paul Theater in his honor when
it opened last October. Paul
was killed in a traffic accident
in June of last year. He was 84.
