Letter to the Editor as Published in the MN Daily

Letters to the Editor
Pride of Minn. needs some schooling
Published: 10/06/2009

I felt extremely fortunate to attend my first Gopher football game in the beautiful new stadium — that is, until halftime. The public address announcer and the scoreboard announced that the University of Minnesota marching band would perform a tribute to Stevie

Wonder.

During the retrospective of Wonder’s musical career, the “Pride of Minnesota” performed a song from Wonder’s album “Innerversions” and, subsequently, a tribute to the legendary “jazz singer ‘Sir Duke’ Ellington.”

Hmm … is it too much to ask that an institution of higher learning get its facts straight, especially when doing a “tribute”? I believe the album was “Innervisions,” and I think any member of the marching band could tell you that Duke Ellington was this country’s greatest composer, band leader and piano player — not a jazz singer. Who will the marching band’s next tribute to a legendary jazz singer be? Neil Diamond?

(Plainsense)
University alum

http://www.mndaily.com/2009/10/06/pride-minn-needs-some-schooling


*Note the editorial changes made by the Daily staff to try and make the Marching Band look not responsible for the errors. Since the script the announcer was reading from was being scrolled across the "3rd largest jumbotron" in college football, the director of the Marching Band was responsible for not proof reading the script submitted to the announcer. Plainsense