A student at CCM

David Benoit; Freedom At Midnight

After graduating from South Dakota State University in 1988, I went on to graduate school at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Yes, I know, it’s a long name. There used to be two schools of music in Cincinnati at the end of the 19^th century: the College of Music and the Conservatory of Music. They merged in 1955 and kept both names in the title. When the University of Cincinnati became a state accredited school in 1962, the College-Conservatory of Music was incorporated into the University. The music industry and graduates of the music program at the university refer to the school as CCM. Although the problem there is that those who don’t know the short history of the name assume that CCM stands for Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. I don’t lose an awful lot of sleep over it.

Graduate school wasn’t just new classes in a different building. This was the first appreciable amount of time that I had ever spent away from home. And I did get homesick during the last four weeks before Christmas break. But when I went home in December, I saw that everyone else had moved on in my absence, and when I returned after New Year’s, everything was fine.

I loved the atmosphere of CCM, dug my piano teacher, Mr. Richard M., and intensified my regimen of personal practice time; which, oddly enough, is the reason I decided to go to graduate school. Very seldom anymore does a musician go to graduate school just to become a better performing artist. The pursuit is the piece of vellum that says that the administering institution has certified that they did the best they could to teach you the stuff that you’re supposed to know but you are who you are and if you don’t know the stuff that they say that you do, well, then you’re a really good faker, and, that must stand for something. I have my vellum somewhere. For right or wrong, I went to graduate school so that I could become a better musician. I like to think that it happened one day while I was there.

Along the way I made new lifelong friends. And with them I played music that I never would have imagined existed just a few years before. I was able to somewhat regularly attend performances of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at student ticket prices. I tried foods that I had never had the opportunity to sample before at various international restaurants. A few of my father’s cousins lived in Ohio, and so on the occasional weekend or holiday I was able to visit them. I went to a couple of Cincinnati Reds games. I got a season pass to the Cincinnati Zoo that was only five blocks away from my apartment. I watched all three seasons of the original Star Trek series. I read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I saw the first Tall Stacks festival down on the Ohio River when it was part of Cincinnati’s bicentennial celebration. That’s where I saw the Delta Queen for the first time.

There were more recitals, masterclasses and concerts in a week at CCM than in any given year at my beloved SDSU music department. And I could usually count on being associated with three or four of those performances each month in old CCM. Somehow I became associated with the clarinet studio and played for many clarinet recitalists. And from that, I have a special affection for the piano and clarinet repertoire.

After one piano and clarinet recital, there was a party at the clarinetist’s apartment. While there, I heard “Linus and Lucy” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” being played on the stereo. But it wasn’t the Vince Guaraldi version. Who’s playing piano on this recording? “David Benoit. He’s a west coast guy.” Does he have a lot of albums out? “A few. He’s really good. You should check him out.” So, I went to the Kenwood Towne Center to the CD store. And found “Freedom At Midnight”.

David Benoit is an acoustical jazz pianist that plays in that smooth jazz style that stems from what they used to call fusion jazz. It’s somewhat of a fluke that I picked this album because there were about five to choose from and I could only afford one. As it turns out, this is the one that was his biggest seller of his almost 30 albums. And he claims that this was the one that he had the most fun recording and putting together. I believe him; there’s a lot of joy in this album. He really sounds like he’s having a great time. This is the album that introduced me to this style of jazz and this style of piano playing.

I find that some jazz music, like some classical music, makes great demands on the listener. There may be an awful lot of time to invest and a long road to travel to reach maybe a small nugget of gold to admire for just a moment. And some listeners are up for the ride. Others may not have that much time and gas to expend. I am light-years away from saying that Mr. Benoit’s style of jazz is cheap in comparison. No. This is creative, thoughtful, hip, dazzling and beautiful music and very accessible to the more common listener. Mozart’s music was all these things, too.

Most of the CCM that I attended is gone. The University of Cincinnati spent $93.2 million on the brand new CCM Village which opened in 1999. And in early October of 2009, a news piece reported that CCM had just purchased 163 Steinways for various performance venues and studios in their little provincial music community. It was the largest single purchase of pianos in the history of Steinway & Sons. It is gratifying to see this magnitude of commitment to an institution for the arts in a nation whose citizens are so ignorant of them.

Credits: To the faculty of CCM, then and now, for your commitment to music, musicians, and to tomorrow’s teachers of tomorrow’s artists. And to Mr. Ronald de Kant for engaging yourself into your student’s lives and for caring for them as people as well as clarinet players. Bravo, all of you.