Oteil Burbridge Interview -- the Bruce Hampton Experience
"It was a great gift, and I could never have see that one coming in a million – in ten million lifetimes I couldn't have seen that one coming."
In the above quote Oteil Burbridge is talking about the gift that was his relationship with Col. Bruce Hampton -- an extremely influential force on the Southern music scene. Yesterday in part 2 link I left you with a cliff hanger. We pick up today just prior to where we stopped yesterday.
Oteil Burbridge Interview Part 3
Oteil Burbridge: It was really fascinating, Peter Sellers came into our trailer and he told me and Ricky Keller that he had had four heart attacks, and said he'd died during one of them and that it was really beautiful. He then said he was going to die after the movie was made. We were like, “Oh man, don't say that, that's terrible!” And he said, “Don't feel bad for me, because I'm actually looking forward to it.” And he died right after that.
He called it man. I had no idea how heavy it was until much later. And the funny thing is, it's another crazy irony, much later when I met Col. Bruce his whole philosophy is really wrapped up in a nutshell by that movie.
I didn't really understand Joe Zambi, Joe Zambi is an actual person, and in jest Bruce made him into a Deity, and that's his religion – Zambiism. And he was explaining it to me in a very roundabout metaphorical Merlin way, and I was just totally confused. And as I finally started to get it, I said, “You know, I think I made a movie of what you're talking about.” And he's like, “You were in a movie?” And I said, “Yeah, it's called Being There.”
His eyes got so wide, he's like, “God Oteil, that's totally it!” And he had gone to see that movie with Joe Zambi and the bass player Ricky Keller, and I said, “You know Bruce what's really crazy Bruce, the actor who played the gang leader in the movie – his name was Ricky Keller!” (Oteil laughing, AB “Oh wow!) We still laugh about how crazy that is. So if people want to really understand Bruce's philosophy, they should watch Being There. (Laughing) And find somebody named Ricky Keller to go see it with!”
Alan Bryson: You know, that movie holds up really well, it's one of those films when you come out of the theater you realize you just saw something very special.
Oteil Burbridge: On man, it's one of the greatest movies of all times.
Scene from the beginning of the film
Alan Bryson: I saw it again about four years ago, and the part that you're in, and it's interesting for someone who is into music and jazz. It's probably been a long time since most people have seen it, but Peter Sellers gets thrown out of his house and is walking around completely lost. At that time Deodato was a very popular Brazilian jazz musician. He had a hit album with a funky jazz version of the film music from “2001 A Space Odyssey” actually “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” So as Peter Sellers is walking around, that's the music that's playing, also in the scenes you're in.
Oteil Burbridge: You know I forgot about that! My dad's got a bunch of Deodato albums. I gotta check that out.
Alan Bryson: Yeah the whole time he's talking to you guys that's playing in the background.
Oteil Burbridge: I can remember it now, oh my God that's crazy. Man there's no coincidences.
Alan Bryson: Coincidence is the thing. You mentioned Col. Bruce, let's just say that somehow you never ended up in the South and you never met Col. Bruce, you'd probably be a musician, and you'd probably be in New York, but can you imagine how different your life would have been if that hadn't happened?
Oteil Burbridge: I can (laughing) because I see people doing it! Like, that was gonna be me you know. And in another sense that was never gonna be me, because I'm a round peg that can't fit into a square hole. So I do think that at some point I would have taken a complete left, I mean if I hadn't met Col. Bruce, I would have met Sun Ra at some point and ended up in his band. (Laughing) Like something was gonna happen totally left, you know.
Alan Bryson: Oteil, share with us, how did the Aquarium Rescue Unit come about, who did you meet first of them?
Oteil Burbridge: It was really because of Jeff Sipe, I was just frustrated, and I literally thought, maybe I did make a mistake becoming a musician. Playing music, and doing it for a career are two completely different things. I would advise more people to just do it for fun. But on the other hand, if you embrace the wine-press and you're ready to get crushed and take it, then go for it as a career.
So I was really frustrated, and Jeff Sipe told me that guys who are frustrated go play with this guy Col Bruce, so you should come and meet it. And all the top cats in Atlanta, the best musicians, the top studio musicians, the top touring guys, they all played with the Col. I was like, alright, but I was warned that he was really crazy. I even had someone take me out to lunch, and I was really poor, so a free lunch I said sure. He was musician who had hired me for something, and the whole purpose of the lunch was that he wanted to talk me out of working with Col. Bruce. He was like, “Oh dude, it's gonna kill your career if you do that.”
By that point I was already too far out, too far gone, to go back. But when I met the Col. it was just what I needed. I can't even say it was just what I needed, because what I thought I needed was something totally different from what Col. Bruce was. It was a great gift, and I could never have see that one coming in a million – in ten million lifetimes I couldn't have seen that one coming.
Alan Bryson: So what was the first meeting like, was it a jam session?
Oteil Burbridge: It was like Saturday Night Live if SNL were a band. We weren't just coming to play music. Music was just skeleton for all the muscle, skin and everything else that was Col. Bruce. Music was something, I don't know how else to put it, it was just something we were hanging our coats on. But the coat was Col. Bruce and his vision of life and music, which I totally understood just on an emotional level. And then I began to understand on an intellectual level. It's difficult to get it on an intellectual level, it's better to come to it on an emotional level. Actually it's emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. If you try to come at it from just your left brain, it's going to seem like nonsense – like most religions do. If you come at it emotionally, then your spirit grabs a hold of it, and then somehow your intellectual somehow understands it.
It's really about life. People think he's crazy, and they think I'm crazy, but it's actually the world that's crazy. This is our response to how absolutely friggin' crazy this planet is, or some of the people in it. We just wake up here in the situation we find ourselves in, and this insanity that's just super dark. But there are these amazing lights that are given to you along the way as you're getting crushed, like BB King and Col. Bruce Hampton. Thank God Col. Bruce was a light to Duane Allman, and Duane got him his first record deal. If that hadn't happened, I don't know, how many of us would even have ever known about the Col.? He's been a light to a lot of people over the years.
Oteil Burbridge with Col. Bruce Hampton (source www.oteilburbridge.com)
Bruce is like a charismatic shamanic figure, and if you fall under his spell you'll learn a lot, and you'll get so much from it. And you'll laugh so much. The things I think about when I think of the Col. it's not about music, it's about laughter and how much good food we enjoyed together. You know, just sitting in a restaurant with the Col. and people are walking by the plate glass outside the front of the restaurant. And he would point out how funny it was, like look at this guy, it was like watching a movie. He taught me to look at life like I was watching a movie. And he taught me to listen to music that way, and that's how I began to start becoming aware of how great people like BB King were. You hear their life story, and it's like, oh my God! And then that ruins so much other music. You realize they aren't telling their story, it's a total lie.
Alan Bryson: I know exactly what you mean. When you hear certain music, you know that it comes from a true place, someone is being honest, and it's real. And that's what makes a guy like Bruce special, because when you look at music that way, you're not just limited to being a jazz snob, because you'll hear people in Country Western, in every genre, and you can recognize when someone has got it.
Oteil Burbridge: Absolutely. I never would have fallen in love with Allison Krauss if I hadn't met Col. Bruce. I literally think I was destined to meet him, because there is so much other music that I just wouldn't have paid attention to if it weren't for him.
Alan Bryson: My personal favorite of that kind of thing is when I think of the first time that I heard Yusef Lateef on an oboe. That shouldn't work, but it does.
Oteil Burbridge: And if Yusef Lateef wasn't a Col. Bruce type figure, nobody was! You could take one look at that guy and know, yep, he's gone.
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Lead Photo is a YouTube Screen Capture -- effects by @roused
Photo of Oteil Burbridge and Col. Bruce Hampton from www.oteilburbridge.com