Christopher Hairston, a graduate of Taconic High School, shared his talent and energy for drumming with people around him, according to Aimee Gelinas of the Berkshire Rhythm Keepers.
PITTSFIELD — By all accounts, to hear Christopher “Stix” Hairston’s drumming was to peer into his soul.
Aimee Gelinas has heard that rhythm since 2007. Hairston, then freshly a graduate of Taconic High School, joined her as part of the Berkshire Rhythm Keepers, an intergenerational group of local percussion students and performers. Gelinas said he had an innate ability to connect with the group’s members across a wide range of ages with his drumming.
He brought an exceptional level of skill to the craft, and a “young energy” that inspired others around him, Gelinas said. She could hardly believe the intensity that he brought at just 19 years old. Hairston came to Gelinas to expand his knowledge of African-rooted drumming.
“He was almost otherworldly, in that sense,” she said. “The ability to just play music almost like a machine was just fascinating to me as a drummer, and as his colleague.”
Hairston, 35, was found dead last week in Greenfield. Police are investigating his death as a homicide, and have apprehended a suspect at Albany International Airport in New York, where he remains in custody awaiting extradition.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Hairston was recognized for band excellence at Taconic, and would go on to perform at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and Jacob’s Pillow as an adult. He also performed with his own group, the Blue Light Jazz Trio, at several local venues. With the Rhythm Keepers, he played the African djembe and doun doun drums — but he was absolutely electric on a full kit, Gelinas said.
Hairston was inventive, voraciously digesting fills and techniques from other drummers and adapting them to be something new. He often spent a lot of time “in the pocket” by his own description, Gelinas said, a jazz term referring to synchronicity with rhythm and pulse.
“He was a learner,” Gelinas said, adding that he was never one to simply copy what was on the sheet music. “He enjoyed really pursuing new avenues of ways to think about music.”
Beyond his musicianship, Hairston was also known for his great sense of humor, his warm demeanor and making others at the Rhythm Keepers group feel welcome. He had a “big lion heart,” Gelinas said, and was an excellent teacher. Gelinas still uses witty, food-related mnemonic devices Hairston devised to help students remember drumming patterns to this day.
Gelinas said they drummed together from 2007 to early 2020, but she lost touch with Hairston after the pandemic.
Nicole Fecteau, board director with Roots & Dreams and Mustard Seeds, recalls Hairston’s teaching abilities even translated to overturned buckets. Until 2021, Hairston taught children the basics of drumming at Madre Jardin, the community garden on Fenn Street operated by that co-op.
“That made him come alive,” Fecteau said. “His spirit, his humor and his love for people alongside his passion … was just the perfect combination for him.”
In recent years, Hairston also joined a local church. He was baptized at the Berkshire Dream Center on Tyler Street. Tina Barnes, an office manager at the center, said she remembered Hairston as someone who was always looking to help out around the church.
He volunteered as a server at the center's Bright Morningstar Kitchen, a free meal site that provides restaurant-style service.
Christopher Hairston plays the djembe drum as part of the Berkshire Rhythm Keepers.
“He was very happy and he was always looking to try to do better in his life,” Barnes said.
He also faced homelessness and housing insecurity in recent years. Those who knew Hairston on the streets of Pittsfield remember him as “a good kid.”
Robert Packard remembered him as a nice guy with a “funny attitude.”
“He was respectable,” the Pittsfield man said.
Now, those who knew Hairston are mourning and processing his death.
GREENFIELD INVESTIGATION
Taaniel Herberger-Brown, 42, a Greenfield resident, is accused of killing Hairston.
Police responded to an apartment at 92 Chapman St. on April 22 after receiving a call from Herberger-Brown’s former landlord, who had arrived to check on the apartment after ordering him to vacate the premises for unknown reasons.
When the landlord arrived about 4 p.m., the air inside Apartment E smelled foul. Near the sofa was a plastic 55-gallon trash barrel tipped on its side, where investigators found partial human remains, according to a Greenfield police report.
The body was later identified as Hairston. It was unclear to investigators when he had died, but they noted decomposition had begun to occur.
Police seized a hatchet located on the ground beside the barrel, as well as knives, a laptop and other items.
Hours later, state and local police in Massachusetts learned that law enforcement in New York, with help of Veterans Affairs officials, had detained Herberger-Brown at Albany International Airport.
Christopher Hairston playing the doun doun drums with the Berkshire Rhythm Keepers.
Herberger-Brown only had a few pieces of clothing, a tablet, a passport and a scant number of items on him; that led authorities to theorize that he’d left in a hurry, trying to flee.
He told police he was leaving to visit his mother, who is from Germany, according to her social media page. He listed several destinations, including locales in Germany and Canada, but said he didn’t have his tickets yet.
Asked by police whether he’d been to his Greenfield apartment recently, Herberger-Brown claimed that he had not been at the apartment in months — he then conceded that he had gotten into a physical fight with someone he claimed had broken into that residence.
He was “unclear” what day the events happened, according to the police report, but he said he left afterward to get his tires rotated.
Herberger-Brown, who stands 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighs 405 pounds, according to court documents, said the man’s “heart stopped” mid-altercation. He also said the man “was using drugs and was attacking him.” Hairston, believed to be the man in question, was about 5 feet, 5 inches tall, according to court documents.
Hairston had been in and out of Central Berkshire District Court with some minor offenses in recent years, sometimes receiving court orders to receive rehabilitation services in various Western Massachusetts communities, including Greenfield in 2021.
Herberger-Brown, who has also been listed as homeless in prior court documents, was arrested and charged with killing Hairston on April 23.
His court case is in an apparent holding pattern, after he declined Monday to be voluntarily extradited back to Massachusetts to be arraigned on the murder charge. It will now take a warrant to get him back to the commonwealth for court proceedings.
His next court date in New York is May 31.
Herberger-Brown has been arrested previously on violent charges, including a 2008 incident in which he was booked for holding a jagged piece of a ceramic soap dish to his then-girlfriend’s throat. He reportedly told the victim he was a Navy Seal and “trained killer,” according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton. Herberger-Brown joined the U.S. Navy in 2003.
HAIRSTON'S LEGACY
Funeral services were held for Hairston at Devanny-Condron Funeral Home on Thursday. Family, friends and members of the Berkshire County drumming community were in attendance. A memorial scholarship will be established in Hairston’s name by his family to support a local student’s education and musical development.
Christopher Hairston, an avid drum player from Pittsfield, plays a full kit during a gig. “[His] ability to just play music almost like a machine was just fascinating to me as a drummer, and as his colleague,” said Aimee Gelinas of Berkshire Rhythm Keepers.
Hairston had “a servant’s heart more than anything,” said The Rev. Katelynn Miner, a pastor at the Berkshire Dream Center, who added that he had “a sweet spirit and way to him.” She said his baptism at the church two years ago was a moment of joy for him; he viewed it as a “new start and beginning” to his life.
“He saw the value in giving back,” Miner said. “He had a heart to want to see the city better and see himself better, and be part of something bigger than himself.”
“I think his life inspired us to want that too — that we all can be part of something bigger if we work together and decide to give back,” she added. “He will absolutely be missed by us all.”
