Breath Control

"Johannes Brahms," the artistic director of the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival said, "hit a dry spell in his late 50s and got jump-started during a visit to the mountains where he heard an amazing clarinet player. The result being his truly blissful Trio in A minor for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, which we proudly present to you now."

Fred Grosse, 58, sighed contentedly and settled deeply into his front-row seat. A widower of one year, he was forcing himself to get out and enjoy life again, and he knew his beloved Evelyn would want him to be here - at the 7th Annual Michigan City Chamber Music Festival in northwest Indiana - enjoying music played on his favorite instrument - the clarinet - played by the musician he admired most in life, the amazing William "Bill" King.

"King of the Licorice Stick," Fred whispered, as the master himself took the stage to tumultuous applause for him and for cellist David Peshlakai and pianist Robert Auler. Not that David and Robert were slackers in any sense of the word, but to Fred Grosse, Bill King was the musician he most wanted to be.

Because, Fred thought, because . . .

Well, because Fred had struggled with the clarinet as a child. He had, you see, taken it up in the first place because he so much wanted to sound like the immortal Benny Goodman.

Fred's father always said: "That Mensch sure could play the licorice stick."

And so Fred wanted to be just that Mensch, especially when his father spun up some of his favorite Benny Goodman platters for his nightly cocktail parties.

Cocktails were a key component of Grosse family life, because Fred's parents were community organizers in the industrial belt of northwest Indiana, and when they weren't hopping from table to table at rubber chicken dinners around the southern rim of Lake Michigan, they were hosting the local movers and shakers in their living room for a "highball here" and a "gin-and-tonic there."

Little Fred could make a bone-dry martini by the time he was ten, but he knew that was not enough to get his father's approval.
No, he decided at that tender age, he would have to play the licorice stick like that Mensch Benny Goodman in order to finally get a word of praise from his tireless father, the exalted Solomon "Sol" Grosse.

Not that Sol ever said: "Kid, you learn to play the licorice stick like Benny Goodman, and I'll give you a bright shiny nickel for your troubles, and maybe a paternal pat on the noggin," but Fred inferred it from his father's frequent praises of the immortal band leader who had dared to integrate his orchestra at a time when "colored" drinking fountains were all the rage.

And so little Fred Grosse said to his mother, Esther Grosse, "Mom, I want to learn to play the clarinet. Just like Benny Goodman."

And Esther Grosse, being the kind and loving mother that she was, when she wasn't help her husband organize the entire southern rim of Lake Michigan in opposition to oppression and evil, said to her first-born child: "Of course, my little Bupka. We'll get you a clarinet and someone to teach you."

And so she did, starting with a used "horn" her cousin David Weiskopf had stashed in a corner of his attic.

It needed new pads and a good cleaning, but it was given freely by a man who said: "You play this with respect, and you will earn the respect of all who hear you."

Just what little Fred Grosse wanted to hear.

Respect.

No: RESPECT.

That's what he craved, and that's what Cousin David's clarinet would give him.

So he and his mother took it to the neighborhood music store where the nice man in back examined the instrument and declared it fit for playing after a "good going over."

Which he did for a nominal sum, and then they sought competent instruction in said instrument.
Esther found a Mr. Neil Grimes to be the man for the job, because, in addition to leading the band at young Fred's public elementary school, Mr. Grimes offered private lessons in the basement of his house. For a nominal sum, of course.

Now, as to Neil Grimes:

Well, what is to be said of an Irish bachelor who absolutely detested all but the most gifted of children and bore in his heart a burning resentment against the concert master of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for failing to give him the oboe seat in the woodwind section that he so richly deserved?

Neil Grimes had a high opinion of himself and those who had mastered the oboe, and a low opinion of all but one of his students: the fair, lovely and talented Allison Bender, who, of course, was mastering the oboe at an early age.

Fair Allison, who was two grades ahead of little Fred Grosse, had perfect breath control and flawless embouchure on the double-reeded instrument and thus could play no sour notes.

She was, in the words of Mr. Neil Grimes, "an angel who has descended among us for the sole purpose of sharing her heavenly gift."

And that, presently, is what young Fred Grosse came to hear as he waited on the other side of a makeshift curtain in Mr. Neil Grimes' basement for Allison Bender to finish her lesson with the Master.

Just my luck, Fred would think, to be stuck behind the child star.

Allison Bender, she of an unblemished complexion and the blue eyes and blonde hair of pure northern European gentile stock, never deigned so much as to make eye contact with the swarthy little "Jew boy" who followed her into Mr. Grimes' dank den next to his mother's washer and drier.

She knew she was a goddess and that her goods would only be sold to the highest WASP bidder when the time came to unfreeze her amazing assets.

Until then, boys could look, but definitely not touch.

And boys of the Jewish persuasion could neither look nor touch.

So there sat Fred Grosse of a cold winter's afternoon in a dank and dripping basement listening to Mr. Neil Grimes sing the fair Allison's praises as his nose ran in synch to the dripping of the overhead pipes.

Mr. Grimes always finished his session with Allison with a duet, usually a divertimento from the Baroque period.

Bene!

Motto bene!!

But when they were finished, and Allison had carefully packed her oboe back in its case, Mr. Grimes would pull back the curtain and look down his long Celtic nose at Fred and say: "Oh, it's you!"

Allison Bender would then make her graceful exit without any acknowledgement of Fred's existence, and then IT would begin: THE lesson with Mr. Grimes.

Fred knew from day one that Mr. Grimes considered him a true Christ killer who had personally pounded in at least two of the nails and would burn in hell forever for what he had done.

And, then, when the little "Sheeney bastard" played his clarinet for the first time!

Or tried to play it!!

Oy ve!

"Honk!"

No, it was more like: "Heeeennkkk!"

Fred knew he had no breath control and no sense at all of what "embouchure" meant. So he knew it was an awful sound the moment he made it, and Mr. Grimes assured him he was absolutely right, and that "You'll never get this. Never. You have no breath control. No idea whatsoever about what I've been trying to tell you about embouchure which means you're biting your mouthpiece and reed as though they were a baloney sandwich. You'll never get this. Never!"

And, with Mr. Grimes hectoring him at every step of the way, and with the fair Allison Bender trumping him at every turn, Fred failed to thrive and learn proper breath control and embouchure.

He had the hardest time of all distinguishing between whole and half notes, and quarter notes were completely beyond his ken.

He kept biting his reeds and could not, for the life of himself, get the little finger on his left hand to depress keys 1, 3, 6, and 16 when the score called for those notes.

The Rubank Elementary Method for Clarinet (by N.W. Hovey, Hal-Leonard) was simple for some, but not for little Fred Grosse who failed to master its 38 "easy" lessons for clarinet.

Fred was a flop, and Mr. Neil Grimes ground him down into the floor drain every time they met.

But the boy wanted to be the Mensch that his father considered Benny Goodman to be, and so he persisted.

And persisted.

And persisted.

And, despite Mr. Grimes's constant put-downs, Fred did get the difference between whole and half notes, and he could even hit the occasional quarter note by counting one beat in his head. He learned to lick his reeds and inhale through his lower lip while never taking his mouth from the mouthpiece.

Breath control came with practice as did proper embourchure. Why, he could even properly pronounce the stupid word.

But he failed to grasp eighth notes and register changes, and when he referred to the "supplementary tunes" when he had "completed" that lesson he made a horrid porridge of Abide with Me, Blue Bells of Scotland, The First Noel, and Come, All Ye Faithful.

Mr. Grimes threw a wet towel in the dryer and said: "That does it. You are not to play a single note at the Christmas Concert next week. Is that clear?"

It was clear to little Fred Grosse that the public school he attended was way out of line in having a "Christmas Concert" in the first place, but he was content to leave that First Amendment battle to his crusading parents.
Besides, he rather liked some of those Christian carols - especially Come, All Ye Faithful. He knew he could nail it - with a little more practice.

But Mr. Grimes was adamant.

"Just sit there with your fingers on your instrument and pretend like you're playing. Do you think you can do that?"

Although he felt his heart sink into his heels, Fred said: "Yes, Mr. Grimes."

And so he suffered the intense humiliation of pretending to play his clarinet through the entire Christmas Concert, which, of course, was directed by Mr. Neil Grimes, and which, of course, featured the superb oboe playing of Allison Bender.

Fred was so ashamed he did not tell his parents, even when his mother came and sat in the front row.

She did say after the concert that she had had a hard time hearing her baby's clarinet, but then she spotted the principal and went to argue "separation of church and state" with her.

Esther Grosse eventually won that battle, but she did not do anything to further her son's clarinet career.

Particularly after what she did on what Fred always referred to ever after as THE NIGHT. Which, of course, followed THE DAY.

And this is how they went down:

It was a freezing day in February 1962, and the footing was treacherous.
But that didn't stop Fred and his little sister Sophie from heading off for Harker Elementary School. Sophie was two years Fred's junior and a shy and retiring creature who preferred the company of books to other people. She was way too smart for school and dreaded each and every day she had to spend in the company of the hooligans who daily disrupted her fourth grade class with their shenanigans.

Fred saw himself as his sister's protector, and he made sure every day to get her safely to and from Harker Elementary School, which was precisely 1.4 miles from the Grosse house on Grove Street in the beautiful Broadmoor neighborhood of Michigan City.

And, so when he saw that the previous day's mantle of majestic snow had been encrusted with a sheet of ice from the freezing rain that had fallen that night, Fred said: "Come on, Sophie, hang on to me, and I'll get you to school safely."

Sophie had a clutch of books in her right hand so she gripped her brother's right arm with her left, and off they went to Harker. Having as he did a lesson after school that day with Mr. Grimes, Fred carried his clarinet in its black metal case in his left hand.

The two of them then tottered off on the slippery sidewalks looking as though they were going to catch the next train to Auschwitz. They appeared to be a pair of pathetic little "Hebes" just waiting to be attacked, and that is precisely what the McCarthy gang of Catholic children down the block thought as they saw "the dirty little Sheeneys" picking their way toward them along what was more a horizontal bobsled run than a sidewalk.

It was the Feast of the Apparition of the Immaculate Virgin Mary on several occasions in 1858 at Lourdes in France. And the nine McCarthy children and their six Gilligan and seven O'Malley coreligionists were all in front of the McCarthy house "packing" an arsenal of ice balls with which to "launch" at the next passing "public," or non-Catholic. As far as those Catholic kids were concerned, the world was divided into two parts: Catholics who went to Catholic school and church, and publics with a lower-case "p" who attended public schools and public churches. Catholics went to heaven, and publics went to hell.

It was that simple, and to the McCarthy/Gilligan/O'Malley collective, the worst kind of public of all was the Jew.

The Christ-killer.

The Yid.

The dirty Kike.

The horrible Hebe.

The Sheeney bastard who jacked up his prices at Christmas time so he could soak hard-working Catholics trying to buy a few nice presents for their kids.
Danny McCarthy, who was the oldest, biggest, and loudest of the lot of them, started the catcalls with a hearty: "Suckers!! You've got school today, and we don't. Suckers!"

When the other jazzed-up gentiles joined the chorus, Sophie tugged on her brother's arm and whispered: "Maybe we should turn around and go the other way."

Fred shook his head and said for all to hear: "No, this is the shortest way to school, and we have as much right to walk on these sidewalks as anybody else."

Sophie tugged harder, but Fred would not be stopped, so she had no choice but to follow him into ice ball range.

Danny McCarthy smiled wickedly and hollered: "FIRE!"

A furiously flung fusillade of rock-hard ice balls streaked toward Fred and Sophie Grosse.

Fred instinctively raised his left hand, the one holding his clarinet in its metal case, to shield them from harm. His ploy worked, but only too well as no fewer than five ice balls struck his case and knocked it from his hand. It fell to the frozen sidewalk and spilled its contents. The Catholics chortled in victorious glee and launched the next round at Fred's exposed instrument.

To say they demolished it is to say too little.

But, knowing they would have to face old Father Fintan in the confessional that Saturday, the furious little Fenians failed to throw a third volley, favoring instead a round of righteous derision.

"Let's hear you play that licorice stick now, Jew boy," Danny McCarthy called.

"Yeah," big Sheila O'Malley seconded, "Let's hear you try and sound like Benny Goodman now, you little Kike!"

All kids in the neighborhood knew that Fred Grosse was "licking his stick" because their parents regularly took to the free drinks offered at the Grosse house. Free liquor was free liquor, even if it was served by Christ-killers.
Sophie Grosse dropped her books and scrambled to retrieve her big brother's shattered clarinet as the cruel Catholics continued their caterwauling.

Fred did nothing but stand there and stare.

His parents had spoken so often of the "recent suffering of our people in Europe," but he had never really believed them.

Until now.

Now he saw that it was all true. All those centuries of pogroms and Jew-baiting and burnings at the stake and raping and looting and pillaging and running out of town and ultimately -- the ovens of Auschwitz.

It was all true, Fred realized, because it's happening right here and now on Grove Street in the beautiful Broadmoor neighborhood of Michigan City.
Fred sighed, looked them all over, and then slowly bent to his broken instrument.

His dreams, he realized, were shattered.

Broken by iceballs thrown by the same people who had run his people out of their villages and burned them at a thousand-and-one stakes stuck to the heart of Christian Europe.

Fred calmed his rage and bent to his sister. He helped her gather her books and the broken pieces of his clarinet. When he had squeezed them back into their shattered case, he said softly to his sister: "Come on, Sophie. We don't want to be late for school."

The Catholics chorused a good, loud, "SUCKERS!!!" but then they let the lowly Jews go in peace. Saturday, after all, wasn't that far away, and Father Fintan had "eyes" and "ears" all over the parish.

And perish the thought that Father Fintan would find any one of them guilty of launching an unprovoked assault against their unarmed neighbors with deadly iceballs. The penance for such a heinous sin would be at least a full Rosary on one's knees on the cold, unforgiving floor of old Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

Fred did not relax his grip on his sister and his clarinet case until they were within sight of school and well beyond iceball range.

It was then that Sophie spoke her only words about the ordeal: "We shouldn't have gone that way. "

Fred looked at his sister and said: "Sophie, we are always going to have to go THAT way. Always. Get used to it."

Sophie just shook her head and broke free of her brother so she could go and be with her one friend, Naomi Schwartz.

Fred went to be with himself, and then he went through the remainder of that school day wondering what he was going to tell Mr. Grimes that afternoon.
He had more than enough time to think about it, because Neil Grimes kept his prized student, the talented and lovely Allison Bender, ten minutes longer, because she was, in his words, "playing at a level worthy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra."

Fred listened to the golden gentile hit every note and ground his teeth. He stared at his broken clarinet case and tried to nerve himself into flight. All he had to do was turn and run up the basement steps and he would be well and gone of Mr. Grimes and his bright shining schicksa and the whole sorry world of music that, clearly, was turning against him.

God himself did not want him to play the clarinet.

"It's obvious," Fred whispered to himself. "Otherwise, why . . ."

"Oh, it's you!"

It was Mr. Grimes, and he had gotten up to get the fair Allison a glass of water.

Fred forced a smile and was about to confess to the iceball incident, when Mr. Grimes spotted the broken case on his lap.

"What is this?!?"

Fred clutched the case to his sunken chest, but Mr. Grimes pulled it away. When he opened it, the shattered remains of Fred's clarinet tumbled to the cement floor.

Neil Grimes gave Fred Grosse such a withering look of disgust and disapproval that Fred feared he would evacuate his shriveled heart out his bowels.

When Mr. Grimes finally found words, he formed these: "No real musician would ever - I repeat - EVER let this happen to his instrument. You, Mr. Grosse, are clearly no musician."

"But," Fred said, hoping to explain himself, "I was attacked by these Catholic kids on the way to school. They threw iceballs at me and my sister, and . . ."

"You're always the victim, aren't you, Mr. Grosse? Well, that's not going to play here, and you're not going to play here. You can't play here, or anywhere else for that matter, because you have failed to protect your instrument. Utterly and totally. You are a failure, Mr. Grosse. Give it up. No, you have given it up. Now leave my house, and don't come back. Do you hear me?"

Fred heard him all too well, and he saw all too well the blonde-haired, blue-eyed head of Allison Bender poke around the sheet and gave him a look of such utter disdain that he felt his heart murmer.
"Do you hear me?!?"

Fred mumbled something that sounded like yes. He hastily gathered up his broken clarinet, stuffed the pieces in his case, and fled headlong for home where guests were already gathering for a round of early cocktails to celebrate Sol Grosse's latest triumph of community organizing.

"Well, if it isn't Benny Goodman himself," Sol said sarcastically to his sulking son. "You gonna play your licorice stick for us tonight, kid?"

Fred sighed and said he didn't think so.

"Come on, kid, everybody's been waiting for your big debut. Haven't you all?" Sol Grosse waved his drink at his drinking buddies and they all raised their drinks in hearty agreement.

And then Fred heard his mother whisper to herself: "Good, this will clear them all out in a hurry."

With that dagger twisting in his gut, Fred fled to his room where he opened his window and flung his clarinet into the backyard for the crows and sparrows to pick over.

And that was the end of Fred Grosse's career with the clarinet until that fateful night at the 7th Annual Michigan City Chamber Music Festival that frames this tale of rebirth through music.

Fred freed himself from the prison of the past and placed himself solidly in the pleasingly present moment of the sublime final movement of Brahms's Trio in A minor for Clarinet, Cello and Piano.

The great William King "tickled his stick" with amazing expression and breath control, and, of course, flawless embouchure, and Fred was so moved and inspired that when Mssrs. King, Peshlakai, and Auler played their final notes, he lept to his feet at once and led a sustained and heartfelt standing ovation.

That was not lost on William "Bill" King who sought out Fred at the reception following the concert and said: "You like the clarinet?"
Fred sighed and told Bill the whole story.

Bill King listened patiently and sympathetically and then said the words that changed Fred Grosse's life for the better: "It's never too late. I have a student in her 70s and she's having a blast. So here's what I'm going to suggest: You go out and get yourself a horn, and a copy of Rubank Elementary Method for Clarinet, and somebody to teach you, and when I come back here next year, I'm going to give you a master class in clarinet. And I expect to hear more than Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. What do you say to that, my friend?"

What could Fred say but: "Yes!"

And he did exactly as Bill King suggested, and every day, no matter how busy, how stressed, how happy or unhappy he was, or whether it was snowing or the sun was shining or not shining, he got that stick out and tickled it for 20 to 30 minutes.

And, do you know, he played a whole lot more than Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star for Bill King when he came to town for the 8th Annual Michigan City Chamber Music Festival.

Sources:
Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, Michigan City, Indiana
Rubank Elementary Method for Clarinet by N.W. Hovey, Hal-Leonard