Benny's Teacher

   In the late 90’s, while I was working as a painter in a small town in northwestern Connecticut,

I was hired by a woman to do some interior painting in a house that was owned by her

grandfather. I have forgotten her name now, so I will call her “Maria.” We had met several times

before, and had some mutual friends, but the only thing I knew about her was that she was a

novelist, and had eight books to her credit. Her grandfather had recently passed away, and the

house was going on the market. When she took me to see it, I could tell from the exterior

architecture that it would be one of the most unusual houses I would ever work in. But that was

not to be the most surprising thing I discovered, as Maria showed me around.

   The house was rectangular, with a tall roof running the length of the building, and two front

doors, one on each end. We entered through the one on the right, and the first thing I realized

was that the house was divided in half. The part that I had just entered was an enormous square

room, at least 40x40 feet, with a cathedral ceiling, and a wall of sliding glass doors and windows

along the back side, looking out toward a pool and the edge of the woods behind the house.

The only furnishings I could see were a stuffed couch and coffee table, a picnic table, and a

grand piano in the far corner, near the sliding doors. The wall on my left was a floor-to-ceiling

bookshelf, from the front of the room to the back, and as I found out later, it was filled with

every imaginable book on music, some of them old and probably very rare. Cases and jackets

of 78's and LP's from jazz artists to classical composers lined the shelves between the books,

and reels of recording tape were neatly stacked alongside the records.

   Maria knew that I liked music. She had heard me play at open mic nights, and must have

thought I would be the perfect person to paint her grandfather’s house. It was obvious right

away that he must have been a musician of some sort.

   On our way in, we had passed through a galley-like kitchen enclosed by cabinets, with a

pass-through counter that divided the kitchen from the big room. It seemed almost like an

afterthought in the design of the house, as if having to eat might get in the way of more important

things. I had the same impression when Maria took me into the other section of the house. She

opened a simple, flat-paneled door, and we walked down a long hallway, passing a small

bathroom, a larger storage area, and then into her grandfather’s bedroom. She referred to it as

his “studio,” and I could see why. It was a fairly large room in itself, and fully furnished. It was

filled with small tables and lamps, stuffed chairs, a couch, freestanding bookcases, and a large

bed off to one side. In one corner, there was a piano, and in another, her grandfather’s desk

and filing cabinet. A built-in bookcase lined the far wall, with more albums, and a collection of

photos neatly arranged across the top shelf. A large reel-to-reel tape deck sat on a rolling table

at one end, and a classical guitar leaned against the bookcase. I asked Maria if I could play it,

and after strumming a few chords, I asked her what her grandfather did for a living.

   “He was Benny Goodman’s clarinet teacher.” She said.

   “No kidding? I said, feeling a bit confused. "Why would Benny Goodman need a clarinet

teacher?” We both laughed. He was one of the greatest musicians of the Twentieth Century, and

it was a hard for me to imagine what he needed to learn.

  I tried to put that question out of my mind, as Maria and I talked about painting. She wanted to

barter, and was more than generous in allowing me to choose the things I would work for, but

she also gave me her grandfather's tape deck, cassette recorder, several microphones and other

recording equipment, along with his guitar, which I still have. Whenever I play it, I think back to

the feeling I had when I first walked into her grandfather's house. It was something I had felt in

spacious cathedrals and concert halls. Everything in the house echoed the humility and grace of a

man whose life was spent in the shadows, and yet whose talent and influence in the world of

music had spread outward to a larger stage, occupied by his student and friend, the great Benny

Goodman.

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Copyright 2009, Skip Van Lenten

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skipvanlenten@gmail.com