Crafting Vessels

Attic black-figure amphora depicting a quadriga, the charioteer is waiting for the start of the chariot race, ca, 510 BC, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

One cool thing about getting older is the opportunity to finally understand some things.

This spring I visited Greece. In the museums, I saw scores of amphoras—vessels for oil, wine, water—every one a piece of functional design, each made beautiful. Because why shouldn't the container be beautiful?

So I also make containers. A song or a composition is a vessel for authentic emotion and human experience. Sometimes listening to Spotify is like being in the Acropolis Museum. I stumble on a container I had forgotten I held before, and I'm reminded of the nectar of feeling, of imagination, and revelation that it contained.

Growing up, I never knew why this song by the Stylistics wrecked me so much. It was one of many R & B ballads on the radio in 1973, produced by Thom Bell. It is only now, as I strive to design my latest container—a chamber opera—that I can appreciate this melding of black lived experience with aspects of Western culture that no one told me also belonged to us: string orchestra, brilliant arranging, and slow waltzes! All of them are channeled through the extraordinary countertenor voice of Russell Thompkins Jr.

Today, I can see The Philly Sound as an expression of black mastery. Our unique thing. Black genius. An amphora worthy of a museum. I'm grateful to have it to draw on as I craft a new vessel of my own. 

—darrell