Posted on: Saturday, October 2, 2004
Professor's recital jazzes up gospel music lecture
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
As a member of Take 6, the Grammy Award-winning jazz group that has performed with the Honolulu Pops, Cedric Dent knows music.
• "The History of Black Gospel Music" lecture/recital
• 11:30 a.m. next Saturday • Banyan Tree Room, Hale Koa Hotel
• $50 in advance only ($30 is tax-deductible)
• 488-6326 Raised Seventh-Day Adventist, Dent said Take 6 had its beginnings on the campus of Oakwood College, a Seventh-Day Adventist institution in Huntsville, Alaa.
We met with the good professor during a break in classes (he teaches history of black gospel music and music arrangements), just as he was finishing up with a student:
Q. You're coming out to give a lecture on gospel music ...
A. Yes, it's actually a piano/lecture/recital. I'm performing.
Q. So you're multitasking?
A. Yes. (Laugh.) It's about a 60-minute presentation. What I try to do is give a synopsis of black gospel music in a fun and entertaining way.
Q. Talk about your role as professor and performer: How do you do both?
A. There's a reciprocal relationship between the two.
When I'm performing, I gain an experience that I can share with my students. It brings the information to life. It's not just theory in the classroom, but comes from real-life experience.
The way it works in reverse is: Being engaged with students sparks creativity, which of course is an essential part of being performer. I get ideas from the exchange with my students that I can use onstage or in the recordings.
It's a wonderful relationship between the two hats.
Q. How did you get this fascination with gospel music?
A. It started with my childhood. I was raised in a Christian family, both my parents were amateur church musicians. They directed choirs and they were also soloist singers, too. My mother did some piano accompaniment. As a little, little kid, I remember being dragged to countless choir rehearsals. "Be quiet, sit in the back, don't interrupt." I remember being fascinated with the parts in the choir, sitting in those rehearsals.
All of that played a major role for me, because I became intimately familiar with church music.
Q. And look where it brought you. Did you ever thank your mother?
A. (Laughs hard). All the time. I'm still thanking her. That's not just because of music, but that's just because she's my mother. You never finish thanking them.
As a professor of music at Middle Tennessee State University, Dent especially knows gospel music. He'll be sharing some of what he knows in a recital/lecture next weekend in Honolulu.
Cedric Dent
