Choir concert showed Morris can be alive in summer!

Brad Miller, UMM's music man

The "I Am Music" performance at UMM Friday evening could be seen as eye-opening for more than one reason. Certainly it made an impression with its sheer quality. That was hardly a surprise given who all was involved in it.
Have we seen the pendulum swing back from the "informal" years, a stretch of time when jazz was the biggest draw at UMM and the performers often dressed in a less-than-formal way? "Less than formal" might be a generous way of describing it.
Am I passing judgment? I'm really intending to show how trends advance and then retreat. My late father was certainly inculcated with the formal approach to things, what might be termed "proper" or "legit" if you don't mind those value-laden terms.
Certainly I have respect for jazz as an art form. It ought to be treated as a valued part of the whole array of styles and not the "marquee" thing. For many years the UMM Jazz Festival seemed like the biggest annual event on the UMM calendar, across the board. We should be happy for any event that enlivens UMM or the community. We should also realize that jazz can be performed well even by young people wearing tuxedos.
Brad Miller is adorned in a most classy way in his photo for the "I Am Music" program, even with bow tie! That's terrific. So, the quality of the July 19 performance was a given. Miller's group is called "Ensemble Intersection." It performed Sunday too at Vinje Lutheran Church in Willmar.
 
Rousing response to HFA performance
The concert in Morris was interesting, maybe even revelatory, for the packed house crowd it drew. Enthused too, with a standing ovation! Mind you, this is in the middle of summer, in friggin' July when the conventional wisdom among the stuffed shirt leaders of this town is that there is no hope for anything interesting happening. This is why we have seen the sad death of Prairie Pioneer Days as a summer event. People in leadership positions actually assert that too many of us detach from the town in summer by "going to the lake."
Obviously not all of us do that, because how would you explain the packed house at the UMM HFA recital hall on Friday, July 19. See? There is hope for Morris in summer. I have felt this way all along.
 
A familiar rodeo, as it were
It's a deja vu experience for me to be observing this. I take no delight in being an "outlier" on community matters. Yet it has been my personal destiny or fate to be perceived as outside the circle of CW (conventional wisdom) as dictated by certain local forces or leaders, leaders in their own minds anyway.
In the 1980s the contentious matters had to do with the public school district. That problem is solving itself more and more as time goes on. Back in that earlier time, our public schools were emboldened by the sense of monopoly they had, whereas today parents are increasingly being able to weigh choices. That solves everything. The day may be coming when parents will simply not be forced to send their kids to the prison-like setting of the public school.
Already schools have been taking on more "user-friendly" traits to accommodate families. The trend will continue.
So in the 1980s yours truly became a pariah in the eyes of some, because I became known as being sympathetic to the views of what turned out to be a minority - a minority but hardly marginal - its ranks included some pretty respected people. Petitions were circulated. Businesses got boycotted.
The disaffected faction made a presentation to the school board. I saw no need for controversy, as I felt the critics were merely stating some obvious truths. My handicap might have been that I had been too close to the school system for years, and could see the problems better than many others could.
When our new superintendent wanted to bring in a new basketball coach, initials C.B., I was already familiar with the coach from his outstanding work at another school. "I knew too much." It might have been my one great failing in this community.
Morris became a swamp of cliques, good old boy-ism and parochial agendas. Teacher Gene Mechelke told me to my face that I was finished at the paper. He said "I've never been wrong yet (about this sort of thing)." He asked if I had any skeletons in my closet. Well, I'm a journalist who can't help but draw conclusions about things sometimes, in the way that I now feel we can describe the Donald Trump rallies without being accused of "bias." So, the teacher thought I was finished and that was back in about 1988. I lasted until 2006 at which point my "baggage," as it were, may have caught up with me.
But as I look back, I wish I had left the job a couple years earlier because my parents had reached an age where they needed me around more. I didn't fully realize it at the time. I was close to them all the time and this prevented me from appreciating their age-related challenges that were slowly accumulating. Of course, my strident critics i.e. the good old boys would say I shouldn't have been living with them in the first place. In America you're supposed to be "on your own" starting at age 18.
If we are going to shun extended or multi-generation families, then we will have to pay more taxes for support systems to help those who lack the kind of family support they might otherwise have. We have an aging population. We should back away from a society where we are so automobile-dependent.
It's deja vu for me now because once again, I am on the outside looking in when it comes to community matters. In other words, I am arguing that Morris should have continued with the summer Prairie Pioneer Days (PPD), even trying to make it better. I do have an ally in Kevin Wohlers. We acknowledge that the event will be held in the fall now. Kevin says that a fall special event might in fact be a good thing (although we already have the welcome UMM picnic), but there's no need to erase the summer PPD. I agree totally.
If our Chamber of Commerce (of all groups) is defeatist about this, thinking there's no hope, maybe we need new input. We need a committee of people who are not "lake people" and who will pledge that they will truly support the event and not try to sabotage it.
PPD at its very best was wonderful. If it is not going to be revived, is it possible that Morris might really be on the precipice of being a "dying town?"
One thing is certain: the July 19 "I Am Music" concert at the HFA recital hall was ample proof that the town really can be alive in summer. Take it to heart.
 
Religious music and institutions
I think UMM went through a time or phase when in the interest of being religion-free, sacred works were to be avoided. Appearances at churches too.
I vaguely remember hearing talk about this in our household. Can't say much that is definitive. I just think this would be logical given the state of our society in the '70s and '80s. I think the huge outburst or popularity of jazz with its non-pretentious face, the face of the "common people" as it were, grew out of that. If my understanding is true, it would have been difficult for my father. He of course wrote sacred-themed pieces, a great many. I'm sure the possible conflict with a public institution wouldn't cross his mind.
So what gives today? There are no restrictions on sacred-themed music at UMM today.
So, my thinking is that UMM adopted the approach that sacred-themed music is not to be viewed as proselytizing. It is to be viewed as art. That's a fail-safe defense.
Oh but I have another angle on this (don't you know). I remember when I was with the newspaper, I covered the African-American gospel group at UMM that most certainly had Christian themes. I remember the standing ovation they got at Oyate. (Carol McCannon led it!)
UMM with its justified history of minority group empowerment was not going to restrict this group. So if a green light was given here, it would have to flash across the board, n'est-ce pas? And how do I feel about it? Quite content, despite the fact that I'm rather aligned with UMM's atheists.
The reason I never proposed an exhibit on my father for the annual faculty showcase - it looks like a science fair - was my concern about showing his background of religious composing. I was prepared to submit a statement as follows: "The Williams family has always respected all the world's religions." And that would be true. My parents were gentle and temperate Christians. They attended a church in the ELCA which is the non-gay-bashing synod. I can see now where the exhibit would present no problem.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com