Grand dedication of Morrison facility Friday

This week is a sentimental journey for UMM. We are reminded of the historical importance of Edson Auditorium on our revered campus. All of the musical events were held there in UMM's early days. Eventually we got the HFA building. Edson will henceforth be part of an entity that has the Morrison name. Yes it's a little opaque.
The HFA is a curious building because of its design. It's a case of misplaced priorities. You enter the building and are struck by the huge, cavernous nature of the hallway, which simply must be bad news from the standpoint of energy consumption. And yet, the hallway is merely a functional place, a means of getting from one point to another. At  the same time, the UMM recital hall is clearly too small. It has adequate seating for many of the events held there, granted. Perhaps events are planned with the knowledge that seating is limited. I am told there have been times when people have had to be turned away.
Consider that our public school has the grand concert hall. Last spring I attended a grades 7-12 choir concert there and it was filled close to capacity.
Edson Auditorium has not seemed to be an extension of the humanities department at UMM. A big exception has been the jazz festival. The jazz fest does not seem as grand as it once was. It's "hanging in there." I'm told it has had some financial challenges. I'm putting it gently as I have heard it has lost money. Not to say that it isn't still mighty enriching. Jim Carlson set up the great UMM jazz fest which grew to have a stature so impressive, it might have even engendered some jealousy on campus. Jealousy in academia? Come on, let's not be Pollyannish.
I gave the jazz fest lots of publicity when it was in its infancy and I was at the Morris paper. I interviewed the likes of Lin Biviano and Bobby Militello. I remember asking Militello about the controversy involving Stan Kenton and Charlie Daniels. He was not enthused about talking about that, but said he would never disagree with anything that Stan Kenton said. (Kenton was alleging disingenuousness in the country music world, stars singing about poverty who outwardly showed lots of bling.) Let's just acknowledge that music is sort of a fantasy world.
I had lunch with Biviano and he insisted on picking up the tab. Thanks Lin. He was probably flattered to hear I had heard him playing at the St. Paul Prom Ballroom when he was with Maynard Ferguson.
 
Applying a more critical eye
Those heady early days of the jazz fest were not perfect, I would assert. I found the combo portion of those concerts to be underwhelming much of the time. They were "nondescript," to use a term I learned from John Woell, our high school band director. The tunes were banal, with a group establishing a melody and then members taking turns with improvisation, far short of brilliant most of the time. But then the audience would invariably respond with robust applause as if following some understood cue.
You know who agrees with me on this? Jim Morrison. He told me once he stopped attending the jazz fest because he thought the combo portion was too blah. Toward the end of Carlson's tenure I returned to the jazz fest and took some photos which Del Sarlette was kind enough to post online. This was when I was just putting my toe in the water in terms of getting online. Thanks Del. The great Byron Stripling was guest clinician. And to my surprise, the combo portion of the concert was far better than how I remembered it from before. Each combo was set up to have a distinct identity or style, for example dixieland. So, I found that concert to be wholly satisfying.
I don't know how the jazz fest has done the last few years. It seems to be considerably shorter in duration. I thought Carlson was too lax with a dress code for his jazz groups. Let me re-word that: It appeared there was no dress code, at least no standards for looking formal.
My generation of the boomers created "casual Friday." We didn't believe much in formal attire, just as we were not enthralled about going to church. I discussed the latter with Jim Morrison once, how people our age detached from organized religion once we got old enough to do so. Many of us have reversed ourselves and now follow convention more. I think back in the day, we were so royally pissed about the Vietnam war, we said to hell with convention, if that's where convention got us.
 
Waltz across Texas?
A very good source told me once that our HFA building was originally designed for a college in Texas. It got nixed there and was then transplanted to UMM. Perhaps the building would have been more practical for Texas where winter heating costs would not exist or be negligible. I'm not an engineer. I have never lived in the South so I don't know if Trump is spot-on when he described southerners as "dumb." The president was commenting on Jeff Sessions from Alabama.
 
Names get layered, sort of
This Friday we will be celebrating the re-dedication of Edson Auditorium. OK that's not the official terminology. I'm not bound by the official terminology because I'm not employed by UMM. I can use the old "jewel in the crown" phrase.
Isn't there a current UMM promo phrase "In the middle of somewhere?" Isn't that a little defensive, because it's a takeoff on "in the middle of nowhere" which people might have been tempted to use in connection to UMM? I'm reminded of the old sign at the Metrodome: "We like it here." Remember that? The great baseball stat man Bill James commented with amusement about that, saying it was defensive, as if we were saying "we don't care what everyone else thinks."
If I were employed by UMM, I'd probably get in trouble even writing this. I'm an independent journalist and songwriter, praise the Lord!
I am told that current UMM staff has because nervous and maybe even unnerved by lots of "legal" issues or requirements, basically like dotting all i's and crossing t's, as with gender references! You know, the English language has a fundamental problem with pronouns.
This Friday, Sept. 21, we will celebrate the "new Edward J. and Helen Jane Morrison Performing Arts Center." That's a mouthful, eh? This center includes the old Edson Auditorium. In fact, it would appear rather hard to even differentiate between the two - the auditorium and the center. Maybe I'll be persuaded there is a significant distinction.
Ed is no longer with us in this life. Neither is my father Ralph, the founder of UMM music, which you will be reminded of, if you visit our family monument at Summit Cemetery. It's a bench, and feel free to use it as such when visiting.
The program for this Friday is set for 3 p.m. The reception will be at 4.
Gee, 3 p.m. on a Friday? Technically speaking, wouldn't we need a permit to park in a UMM lot? I suspect very strongly that word will go out for campus security not to make a check Friday afternoon, not with all the Scrooge McDucks coming to town to celebrate the event. I plan on riding my bike to campus, just to stay on the safe side. I will have to ride bike wearing my "cocktail attire." My invitation suggests we wear "cocktail attire." I have had a few laughs about that with friends. I have suggested it is an outdated term. We should no longer promote any terminology that suggests that social drinking is something to be approved, n'est-ce pas?
We will all wax nostalgic come Friday, whatever it is that "wax" means.
 
Addendum: The UMM jazz combos were at their most pedestrian when one played for a fete many years ago for the Morrisons at Sunwood Inn (today known as Motel 200 or Hotel 2000 or whatever). I thought it was terrible. I looked at faces around the room and wondered what everyone was thinking. Then at the end everyone applauded lustily. And Ed during his remarks said that performance was really the highlight of the night. The students deserved credit for showing up and doing their thing. Once when I was at a nightclub in Nashville TN, the regular house singer took a break and a member of the audience offered to perform, name of Pauline as I recall. Well, she was awful. When mentioning this to the house singer, name of Del Gray, he told us "if you don't like it, don't applaud." Nashville words of wisdom. People there will be very direct and honest with you.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com