Put The Spirit In The Room

On the levels of writing and performing. (Thank You,Curtis Lindsay! for this thoughtful response at an online question and answer site.)

Curtis Lindsay, pianist, composer.

Originally Answered: What is the single most important thing to know about music?

"It’s whether or not you can put the spirit in the room.

Even those not familiar with his brand of music may recall hearing of the unusual death of Col. Bruce Hampton (Ret.) on May 1, 2017. He collapsed onstage during the encore number of his own 70th birthday celebration concert in Atlanta’s Fox Theater, and shortly after died in hospital.

Hampton was not actually a colonel, and he expired before he retired. What he was was this: a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, a Southern-fried shaman, a disarmingly unique eccentric, and one of the great musical gadflies of our time. His presence itself was psychedelic, several times larger than life, giving one the impression that he was an interstellar emissary. Legend has it that Col. Bruce could guess your birthday on first meeting, and I cannot help but corroborate since he successfully guessed mine. He would have made for an excellent revivalist preacher.

As a young man in the 1960s, Hampton sang with Frank Zappa and founded the Hampton Grease Band, which opened for the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead and produced the second worst-selling album in the history of Columbia Records. His influence was felt throughout Southern music and beyond it, from Georgia acts like Widespread Panic and R.E.M. to bands like Blues Traveler and Phish.

Later in life, he made a habit of constellating touring bands around himself and his songwriting. They were populated by the best of the best, crackerjack musicians with unbelievable chops and versatility. The Aquarium Rescue Unit was the most august of these. The Fiji Mariners and The Codetalkers were others. I had the pleasure of seeing Hampton and his bands perform a dozen times around the South; I hung out with them on occasion when they came to my town.

These outfits reminded me a little of the structure of a cell: the guys in the band were the organelles, the ones doing all the work, and Col. Bruce was the nucleus. He had a soulful, booming baritone voice, but he didn’t play his guitar that much. The players who worked with him night after night, revolving around him on stage in a wide-ranging mixture of pub jamming and experimental theater, spoke of him with great reverence and humility.

“I’m just a folk singer from another planet,” Hampton once said. “These are some of the greatest musicians in the world.”

Young hopefuls, plenty of whiz-kids among them, flocked to Hampton looking for wisdom, guidance, a helping hand, the chance to play. Hampton required great chops as a matter of course, but was not impressed by them.

“Most people play their instruments, and they don’t play music. They don’t listen to anything around them. They’re not playing the music — they’re playing the notes. It drives me absolutely crazy,” he remarked in a 2016 interview.

“I want somebody who can play everything, play the feel of every idiom. Somebody who can put joy in the room.”

Whether we’re talking about a bluegrass trio on the front porch, Messiaen at the great organ of Saint-Trinité, a high school choir concert, or a sequencer-driven arena pop act, the most important thing a musician can learn is to get out of the way of the spirit knocking at the door of that room.

Otherwise, what the hell are we doing?"

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