Music played with spirit by half the band (5)
I believe the answer is:
rumba
'music' is the definition.
(rumba is a kind of music)
'spirit by half the band' is the wordplay.
'spirit' becomes 'rum' (alcoholic spirit).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'half the' means to take half the letters.
'band' with half the letters taken is 'ba'.
'rum'+'ba'='RUMBA'
'played with' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rumba that I've seen before include "Dance originating in Cuba" , "music one can dance to" , "Cuban folk dance" , "Caribbean dance" , "number of steps" .)