My uncle, Stan Hall died last week. He was real Minneapolitan!
Stan founded and managed the Hall Brother’s DIxieland Jazz Band and the Hall Brother’s Emporium of Jazz in Mendota. According to bandmates he was the glue for the band and club. Playing with his brother Russ on trombone, Butch Thompson on clarinet, and Charlie DeVore on cornet, and a group that sometimes reached fifteen members the band made the Emporium a hopping place when I was young. Stan built the bar, maintained the systems, served food, bounced the drunks, and played the piano all without missing a chorus.
Horn player Charlie DeVore, told a story of Stan replacing the drive train for two band mates who were heading to New Orleans when their car broke down just out of Minneapolis. He had scoped out an abandoned vehicle of the same make over the past few months so when the need arose, Stan swapped out the parts and sent the players on their way.
A lifelong resident of South Minneapolis, he graduated from Roosevelt High, after a stint in the army he married my dad’s sister Joanne in 1953. My aunt and their six children -my cousins- Claire, Fred, Ellen, Christine, Bill, and Jeanette all survive their dad.
Uncle Stan was a father, a hunter, a welder, a mechanic, a farm hand, an army grunt, a great pianist, a painter (his auto paint jobs were renowned in the late forties and early fifties), and a Minneapolis original
The stories about Stan are many and varied. I’m glad he was part of my life and the life of Minneapolis. I’m happy that he will live on in our memories!
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