From Musician to Administrator:
Newell Dayley, New BYU Vice President
by Ron Simpson

My July article was all roughed in when a note reminded me how short is K. Newell Dayley’s remaining time among his arts colleagues at BYU. Dayley, who is currently the effective and beloved dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, has been named Associate Academic Vice President of BYU under new head, Elder Cecil O. Samuelson. So I decided—hastily—to create a sort of memory trail, sharing personal glimpses of my composer/ trumpeter/ educator friend. Not incidentally, Newell Dayley was the BYU music chair who hired me. The article makes use of selected lines from the 1927 poem, “Desiderata,” by Max Ehrmann. It strikes me that Newell Dayley’s life embodies the values promoted in the poem. 

*   *   *   *   *

“It’s a great street. You’d love it here,” says drummer friend Bob Campbell. It’s about 1968 and Bob is giving us the first shot at renting the house his young family is vacating on 1150 East in Provo, just south of Kiwanis Park.

“Reuben and Emily Clark are right next door—that’s J. Reuben Clark the 3rd—and Newell and Diane Dayley are two more doors down,” continues Bob, explaining that the neighborhood is a mix of student rentals and established families.

We agree to rent the light green post-World-War-II frame house without hesitation, and soon the gifted BYU sax player Brent Faulkner has parked his VW bug in front and moved his instruments and his enormous record collection into our tiny basement sub-rental apartment. Brent and I are from the same jazz-musician group at BYU that also includes Campbell and Newell Dayley, who has just returned to BYU after completing a master’s degree at USC. I am back in Provo for more schooling after trying my luck in the music career I would resume after this two-year hiatus. Our second child would be born while we lived in that house.

From this point on Newell, a top trumpeter, and I would bump into each other semi-regularly, usually in professional music situations. My goal was to work myself into first-call rotation with the top bass players in Utah. My only angle in this capable milieu was to be one of the first to embrace the electric bass and to adopt the newer rock-oriented styles that came with it. National touring shows that stopped in Utah were already requiring the bass players to double, and so I began to get more than my fair share of calls. Meanwhile Newell was getting frequent calls to fill in with the Utah Symphony.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste... As far as possible be on good terms with all persons...

Newell and I became friends through his initiative. While his quiet, sincere kindness to all he would meet is by now legendary, he also seemed to have an instinct for predicting which musician acquaintances might have staying power, and on this level he made friends and built his music network with a purpose.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.

A bit of an early paradox would be Newell’s quiet dignity, coupled with talent and interests that drove him toward jazz, a music which often seemed to attract a disproportionate number of loud and vexatious musicians. (Takes one to know one?) He was always there among us, always a point of light—an oasis of grace—never compromising his own values and yet never fracturing the camaraderie that had to be there for musicians to work together, creating and improvising spontaneously.

Newell Dayley and Bob Campbell would also co-direct a jazz big band at BYU. I was the bass player, Brent Faulkner was the featured sax soloist, and guitarist Ralph Geddes, newly arrived from Los Angeles, would turn adjudicators’ heads whenever the band played in competitions. Newell, so recently returned from the creative-music environs around USC, showed us he could write effectively in the jazz idiom. Our band would be the seedbed, the precursor, of the bands Newell and later Ray Smith would direct under the BYU moniker, “Synthesis.”

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time

In 1972 the Church mounted a music festival entitled “Sing a New Song.” Both Newell and I were among those commissioned to submit works, but by now Newell’s parallel talents in music education and administration were becoming too strong to ignore, and increasingly his talents were sought in the office suites of academe, leaving less time for the pursuit of freelance jazz, commercial, and classical projects he otherwise would have relished. His Church callings also became more and more demanding. The band Synthesis became his one and only jazz outlet.

And what a connection he made with his students; what a role model he became. At last year’s Pearl-awards tribute to Newell, Sam Cardon, Kurt Bestor, and Dan Truman (Diamond Rio) were among the many who contributed reminiscences. In Truman’s second life as a smooth jazz artist with partner Ron Saltmarsh, also a Newell Dayley protégé, one of their tunes is called “Hanging with Newell,” in honor of their mentor.

(The beginnings of Synthesis, which I observed from somewhat of a distance, having by now returned to my downtown Salt Lake musical enterprises, were interesting: In the 70s Newell brought jazz trumpeter Chuck Mangione to BYU, raising some traditionalist eyebrows. At roughly the same time Dayley gave a widely-reported speech about righteous, gospel-centered use of the arts, and explained the wide spectrum—the synthesis—of musical styles he embraced. This would be the philosophical platform behind the name of the rollicking new big band he proposed, which he would direct, and which would be called “Synthesis.”)

And yet, notwithstanding the escalating demands on his time, Newell kept his creative career alive, composing a string of pageants for the Church, and a series of musicals for the Ralph Rodgers administration of Promised Valley Playhouse in Salt Lake City.

One night in the 70s, I sat alone in the balcony looking down on one of Newell’s musicals. It was a tribute to Maurice Warshaw, founder of Salt Lake’s popular and trendsetting Grand Central stores. Soon I was embarrassed to find myself crying. Warshaw, played by singer/actor Craig Clyde, was nailing his part, the music was perfect, and I was in tune with the moment. Not sure what to do with this unexpected overflow of emotion, I exited into the upper lobby a few minutes before intermission. Instead of finding a quiet corner, I bumped straight into Newell, mumbled a few words of congratulations, and totally failed to explain the tears, which I didn’t really understand myself.

And this was the way Newell showed me he understood: when he got too busy to accept further commissions at Promised Valley Playhouse, he remembered how I’d been moved by what he had tried to say musically about Maurice Warshaw. I was recommended as his successor, and composed the Scottish-flavored musical, “Along the Way,” which celebrated the life of LDS Sunday School founder Richard Ballantyne. 

And earlier, as Newell recorded the scores for his pageants in our Salt Lake studio, Sound Column, he formed a trusted relationship with our senior engineer, Jim Anglesey. Jim would increasingly be contracted at Newell’s request to install and run the sound for these pageants at large daunting venues such as the original Salt Palace arena or the Huntsman Center, University of Utah. And then in the early 80s, Newell would tap Jim Anglesey again, this time to coordinate the new sound recording program at BYU, a post Jim would hold for twenty years.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery...

The busier Newell got, the more he found time to publish arrangements, compose music, and take care of the pertinent business details of his music, a skill which seemed to develop and grow as Newell’s creative work achieved wider and wider acclaim. “Lord I Would Follow Thee” was composed amid the pressures of being chair of the Music Department at BYU. “Faith in Every Footstep,” the sesquicentennial theme, was created as Newell toiled in the dean’s office.

Early in the 90s, Newell was called for a year to be an on-site consultant to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and that experience would inform his teaching to this day. His music business students at BYU now learn to research, write, and present personal business plans, hoping to fit into the fragmented and independent landscape of music in the 90s and on into the new millennium. Newell teaches what an LA music business consultant recommends: “Don’t do the music business, be a music business.”  That is Newell Dayley’s example: he has handled his own music business affairs the whole way.

For someone so strong in administration and teaching, Newell’s creative output continues to surprise me. Maybe the most unexpected credit I’ve found is in the library of Windward Community College in Kaneohe, Hawaii, part of the University of Hawaii system. In their Hawn Collection is a 1995 educational video entitled “Ancient Legends of Polynesia.” K. Newell Dayley is listed as the author.

Therefore be at peace with God, ...And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

Once in the late 70s I drove down from Salt Lake for a meeting with Newell. After the meeting, we walked down into the lobby of the Harris Fine Arts Center together. Uncharacteristically, Newell began to confide some frustrations about his work at BYU. He went on to mention offers he’d recently entertained to leave BYU and grow his career in new and exciting directions.

“But you’ve stayed,” I remarked.

“Every time I start to feel I should move on, then a funny thing happens and my heart softens. You’re right—I’ve stayed.”

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars... And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Newell has always managed intuitively, trusting in the guidance of the spirit. In a series of 3 unexpected 80s phone calls, his inspiration rocked my world. The first call was in 1982. He explained that he was tracking down former students who had stayed in music and seemed to be successful but hadn’t graduated. Was there anything he could do to encourage me to wrap up the remaining one or two music classes?

“That’s amazing, Newell. I’ve been studying for the language exemption test, and passed it last week. That wraps up the G.E. requirements. How did you know graduation was on my mind?” Thus in mid career I soon worked out the remaining requirements, and it felt great to meet the goal of graduation, however belatedly. Thanks, Newell.

The next phone call was mine, 1983. I had worked out and tested a system of teaching songwriting, and it struck me that song-sized projects were usually all that were available to young media composers at entry level. I was anxious to try out my ideas on a college-level class, and Newell set it up. I reported to composer Merrill Bradshaw, and drove down one night a week. Talk about nervous: out of the ten students who took that first class, seven already had albums in the stores. But the class was a success and it started a buzz. Thanks again, Newell.

The final call was in the Spring of 1984, and Newell said, “Ron, we have this position open,  and for some reason we haven’t seemed to find the right applicant. Would you consider interviewing?  It’d be with me, Randy Boothe, and Dee Winterton.” I protested that I was very happy in my own companies, but I would be willing to talk with them. Six months later my life had turned 180 and I was a BYU guy: Newell’s intuition—in tune with the spirit—had prevailed again. The universe was unfolding as it should: step 3, I realized, couldn’t have happened without steps 1 and 2.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Our relationship isn’t all business. One night Newell saw my ‘62 Studebaker in the parking lot at Promised Valley Playhouse, and the following week, at lunch, he told me he was into a vintage Volvo hobby, and that he had an Volvo 1800 coupe in the shop, just about finished. The 1800 was just about the coolest Volvo ever made. I snooped around and found Newell’s car in a body shop, gold and shiny, just about ready for the street. After that he built up a red Volvo PV544 and drove it to work for a year or so. His innate modesty prevented him from talking much about the cars, but trust me, he was way into it. It was a change of focus, a positive outlet: taking something old and worn and used up and standing it back on its feet. 

Neither be cynical about love,for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,it is as perennial as the grass.

I guess Newell’s song, “I Feel My Savior’s Love” sums up his life and his thought: Love is the answer. Christ is the answer. The love of Christ is the answer. And jazz is not a question.

*   *   *   *   *

In 2002 Dan Truman took his son Ben and a friend to Florida from their home in Nashville for a high-school-graduation outing. Driving around Orlando, Dan had the radio tuned to a jazz station. “What kind of music is this?” asked Ben’s friend, not really digging it. “It’s jazz,” answered Ben, in a quiet voice, and then he added confidentially, “My Dad thinks it's really important.”

Dan quickly followed with, “You know what Newell Dayley used to say?  He said there’s only two kinds of music in heaven...” “Yeah, I’ve heard this,” Ben interrupts. “Classical and jazz.”

And then, after a long pause, Ben asks, “Dad, tell me again...who is Newell Dayley?”