After the heartbreaking passing of legendary jamband godfather Col. Bruce Hampton at his own 70th birthday concert celebration earlier this week, friends and colleagues from around the music world have shared their thoughts and memories of the man. Blue Traveler frontman John Popper, who had a close relationship with Hampton, traveled with him during the H.O.R.D.E. tours in the ’90s and was one of the musicians on stage when Hampton collapsed, has shared a lengthy and poignant remembrance of the Colonel via his Facebook page.

In the note, Popper begins by remembering the moment Hampton went down, during a superjam finale of “Turn On Your Lovelight,” noting that the collected musicians thought that Hampton, widely known as a character, was simply reacting to the solo by Taz Niederauer, the young guitarist who had just been called out by Hampton to take center stage.

“And we all knew the part to play,” Popper writes. “It was so fun & funny I leaned over & whispered in Taz’s ear in reference to his solo as the Col kept it up staying down, ‘I think U actually killed him’…For none of us knew…except as perhaps as Oteil suggested to me, the Col himself bc as much as I along w/ any up there may have been traumatized in our moment of hard realization that this was in fact no joke, (& that realization would grow starker still), I have to admit that if it were in his power to choose a time then the time was eerily perfect in execution.”

Popper goes on to expand on the astounding timing of Hampton’s departure, along with the undeniable legacy that the man leaves in his wake and all the lives he touched during his time on the music scene, including Popper’s. The note then closes with Popper’s own promise to continue Hampton’s ethos in passing on the loving nature he shared with everyone around him:

“I plan to continue as he taught…I’m gonna go play that way & continue to do so for as long as I can…& I will share it as he did…Taz & I got to know each other a little better in this last interaction w/Bruce…& I look forward to jamming as long as I can w/him and those after as long as my intent can remain pure…I took it as no accident our mutual introduction…I learned to take nothing the Col did as an accident…nor a plan…I took his actions as truths made apparent by the love of his light…Let the legend loose!!”

Read the full statement here.