Mance Lipscomb says religion is love

I grew up with the kind of people who use the Bible as a bludgeon--a blunt force instrument to keep curious young minds from asking too many questions or thinking too independently. So I can perhaps be excused for my allergy to religion.

But I couldn't help but me moved while watching "A Well Spent Life," director Les Blank's documentary about bluesman Mance Lipscomb, and hearing the sweet old man talk about religion (shortly after talking about how many parentless or might-as-well-be-parentless children he has helped to raise over the years). "Religion is just love," says Mance Lipscomb. If only more people thought that way, the world would be a different place...

Meanwhile, those of us without organized religion take our spiritual sustenance where we can find it. We build private virtual churches deep within ourselves.

During one week in the Catskill Mountains with the jazz/funk/free trio Medeski Martin & Wood at their first annual music camp, I sort of felt like we were all embarked on building a new religion...but specifically one in praise of music itself, without any particular creed, code, or body of legend that needed to be adhered to. Watching the Mance Lipscomb film late at night, after hour upon hour and day upon day of workshops and ensembles and performances from MMW, was like hearing a really great heartfelt sermon from the one preacher in childhood you could actually trust. Here's a guy with a resilience and good humor and gratitude about life even when it's grindingly difficult. A person who's learned to sing his blues rather than get bogged down by them. We would all wish for such grace.

Speaking of grace...after 17 years making music together, it turns out that John Medeski, Billy Martin, and Chris Wood are also graced with a gift for teaching. I could not get over how much they gave us and kept giving us during this weeklong musical adventure: their advice and ideas and musical philosophies; their cool stories; their innovative practice suggestions; their incredible, intimate performances in that beautiful little space at the Full Moon Resort; the extensive, eclectic, but very concrete songlist of music that had influenced and informed them...it went on and on.

Sure, this camp was a savvy business move for them. I am certain that with their kids growing up and they themselves reaching middle age, M and M and W are all looking for ways to make a living in music without being on the road constantly. And besides, they're just human beings. For all I know, John Medeski never pays his taxes on time, Billy Martin is mean to his mother's cat, and Chris Wood once did or said something that made his junior high school prom date cry in the girl's bathroom. None of us is a saint.

But for one week in early August in the Catskills, these fine gentlemen built us a little church of music and welcomed us in. It was a savvy business move but also an act of service, humility, and love.