A few years ago, a DJ friend told me about a listening bar in Lower Manhattan called All Blues. It was a rainy night in March. I had just finished dinner with a friend who headed home, and I decided to pop in. I had trouble finding the door. When I finally did, a regal gentleman wearing a long coat and a hat stood just inside the entrance. He looked at me with a radical presence and said, “Welcome. Can I help you?”
It was Cornelius Byrd.
I remember thinking: Whoa. This place is hosted.
Cornelius guided me through a small, beautiful bar with 13 stools and past a curtain into the second room. When I walked in, I gasped. The room felt less like a bar and more like a sanctuary. I have been back many times since, and am always learning from how Cornelius and his partners hold and shape a very different type of room.
Yesterday afternoon, I was thrilled to welcome Cornelius Byrd, Host and Director of Experiences at All Blues, as our guest for the latest episode of the BREAKDOWN on Substack Live.
Here are three insights from our conversation that have stayed with me.
1. “Hosting — it’s not charisma. It’s paying attention.” Cornelius told us that he thinks of hosting as “the continuous management of presence.” His role in the room is to read the space, welcome people, orient them to the experience, and help them understand how to be there.
2. A listening room is like a womb. When you’re at All Blues, the point is to not talk. It’s to shut off some of your senses and open your ears. Cornelius compared this experience to growing in the womb, where you’re fully present, receiving consciousness, growing, and developing. And he envisions All Blues as feeling like a return to the womb.
3. The future is sound. After years of noisy, distracted environments, people are craving experiences that focus their attention. At All Blues, the host’s job is to remove the blockages to collective listening.
Cornelius and his business partner, Yuji Fukushima, have built a gathering that they want to be at. Sound familiar??? :)
You can listen to the conversation above by clicking the arrow on the video. You’re in for a real treat.
As always,
Priya
P.S. Next week (Wednesday, March 11) in our GROUP HELP Session on Zoom, we’re exploring how to weave music into our gatherings, even (especially!) if you don’t consider yourself musical. Music is one of the fastest ways to create shared meaning between people. This session is for paid subscribers, so become a GROUP LIFER here if you’d like to join us.
