The news rippled through the music community on Monday morning when representatives for Kool & the Gang confirmed that longtime vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Michael “Spike” Sumler was killed in a single-vehicle collision late Sunday night.

Sumler, 71, was reportedly driving his black Lexus SUV westbound on Interstate 10 near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he lost control on a slick patch of roadway shortly after 11:30 p.m.

According to Louisiana State Police, the vehicle veered into the median, struck a guardrail, and overturned. First responders pronounced Sumler dead at the scene; his wife, Diane Sumler, who was riding in the passenger seat, sustained only minor injuries and was treated and released.

Authorities have ruled out alcohol but are still investigating whether fatigue or mechanical failure played a role in the accident.

News of Sumler’s death prompted an immediate outpouring of grief from the surviving members of Kool & the Gang, who had performed with him for more than four decades.

Founding bassist Robert “Kool” Bell posted a somber message on Instagram: “Our brother Spike lit up every stage he walked onto. Tonight that stage is heaven. Rest in the rhythm.”

Drummer and co-founder George “Funky” Brown echoed the sentiment, calling Sumler “the glue between the brass and the beat.” The band’s official channels changed their profile photos to a black-and-white image of Sumler clutching his signature silver trumpet during a 1984 tour stop in Tokyo, a visual reminder of the joy he brought to fans worldwide.

Born Michael Leon Sumler on May 3, 1952, in Jersey City, New Jersey, he grew up just a few miles from the west-side neighborhood of Newark where Kool & the Gang first got their start.

The son of a church organist and a postal worker, Sumler gravitated toward music early, learning piano at age six before switching to trumpet in junior high. By 17 he was gigging with local funk collectives and polishing his chops in jazz combos that played smoky bars up and down the Hudson River waterfront.

A scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston followed, but Sumler’s practical streak drew him back home before graduation. “I learned as much in those clubs as I did in any classroom,” he would later tell DownBeat magazine.

His connection to Kool & the Gang began in 1979, just as the band was crafting what would become its mainstream breakthrough.

The group needed a versatile horn player who could also handle background vocals on the newly recorded album “Ladies’ Night,” and Sumler’s name surfaced in a word-of-mouth recommendation from session drummer Efrain Toro. Sumler auditioned, nailing the intricate brass riff on “Hangin’ Out,” and was hired on the spot.

Within months he was on a world tour, charting new territory for the band as “Ladies’ Night” rocketed up the R&B charts. By the time “Celebration” crowned the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1981, Sumler had evolved from road sideman to full-fledged bandmate, trusted in the studio as well as on stage.

Sumler’s musical fingerprints are scattered across the group’s most recognizable hits of the 1980s. He helped craft the mellow horn counterpoint on “Joanna,” layered vocal harmonies on “Cherish,” and co-wrote the percussive bridge on “Fresh,” earning a co-songwriting credit that secured him a lifetime of royalties.

Band insiders often joked that Sumler was the band’s “utility infielder,” equally comfortable doubling a sax line, slapping a keyboard synth patch, or stepping to the front of the microphone for a growling ad-lib that electrified arena crowds.

His live tour de force came during the extended jam of “Get Down On It,” where his soaring trumpet solo routinely stretched past the five-minute mark and brought audiences to their feet.

Away from the glare of stage lights, Sumler was known for a quiet, avuncular demeanor and a penchant for mentoring younger musicians. He volunteered at after-school programs in Newark, offering free brass lessons to kids who had never held an instrument.

In 2010 he founded the Sumler Arts Initiative, a nonprofit that provided refurbished instruments and practice space to inner-city schools across New Jersey and Louisiana, the latter a nod to the state where he kept a second home.

“Music kept me out of trouble,” he told The Times-Picayune in 2017. “If I can pass that forward, that’s more valuable than any platinum record on my wall.”

Tributes poured in from across the musical spectrum as news of his passing spread. Questlove, who has long cited Kool & the Gang as a foundational influence on hip-hop sampling, tweeted a clip of Sumler’s trumpet break on “Summer Madness” with the caption, “Every producer owes this man a thank-you.”

Pop superstar Bruno Mars posted an Instagram Story calling Sumler “the heartbeat of funk.” Even NASA’s official account joined the chorus, sharing a snippet of “Celebration” that the agency once used as a wake-up call for Shuttle astronauts, writing, “Your music reached orbit, and your spirit soars even higher.”

Plans for a public memorial are already under way. The Sumler family has announced a celebration-of-life concert at Newark’s Prudential Center next Friday, featuring performances by Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, and several of Sumler’s protégés. Proceeds will benefit the Sumler Arts Initiative, ensuring that the late musician’s commitment to youth education continues.

A private funeral service will follow, with burial at Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey, where several of Sumler’s relatives are interred. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, fans donate to music-education charities in Sumler’s name.

For Kool & the Gang, the loss slices deeper than a change in lineup; it marks the end of an era defined by airtight horn lines, joyous grooves, and the camaraderie of childhood friends who fashioned Jersey-basement jam sessions into global hits.

The band has vowed to continue touring, in keeping with what Sumler himself once said about the inevitability of aging on the road: “The music outlives us all, so the show must go on.”

Still, Bell admitted during a radio interview with SiriusXM that stepping on stage without his longtime colleague beside him would be “like trying to dance without the kick drum.”

Sumler’s legacy, though, extends beyond gold records and Grammy trophies. It reverberates in the first confident note blown by a teenager at a school assembly, in the sample that anchors a new hip-hop track, and in the communal swell of voices shouting “Celebrate good times” at a wedding reception.

His career traced a through-line from the sweaty funk clubs of the 1970s to twenty-first-century arenas fitted with LED walls, proving that genuine musicianship never goes out of style.

As fans worldwide cue up their favorite Kool & the Gang playlist in tribute, they’ll hear Sumler in every jubilant trumpet flourish, every layered harmony, and every beat that makes feet move toward the dance floor.

In the wake of his sudden passing, it is tempting to view Sumler as yet another casualty of life’s random cruelties. Yet his story offers a counterpoint: a life devoted to craft, camaraderie, and community, ending not in obscurity but amid the love and admiration of millions.

The wheels may have stopped turning on that Louisiana highway, but the rhythms he forged keep rolling forward, echoing through headphones, gym sound systems, and block parties from São Paulo to Seoul. Michael “Spike” Sumler spent 71 years putting more groove into the world; in return, the world will keep spinning to his beat.