The masters of mix and match
Flecktones still blending disparate musical styles
dailynews.philly.com
by Jonathan Takiff, Daily News Staff Writer
Daily News Staff Writer
BELA FLECK AND THE FLECKTONES, tonight (sold out) and 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Keswick Theater, Easton Road and Keswick
Avenue, Glenside. Tickets are $28.50. Info: 215-572-7650.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when Bela Fleck felt rejection from all sides. "The jazz people ostracized us," he recounts.
"In the bluegrass community, no one would consider us their own."
Problem was, the banjo-playing Bela and his buds in the Flecktones had this crazy notion of breaking down the stylistic walls -
marrying the seemingly disparate worlds of back porch picking and exploratory jazz, while throwing in some healthy chunks of funk
and song structures so intricate and lyrical they could pass for serious modern "classical" music.
Certainly, others had worked parts of this neighborhood before. Guys like David Grisman and Tony Rice have made a mark with
"jazzgrass" (with a stronger emphasis on the latter syllable). And back in the '70s and early '80s, bands like the Mahavishnu
Orchestra, Weather Report and Return to Forever made some super dynamic and adventurous jazz/rock/classical connections.
"But nobody had gone there in a long time when we started making music," says Bela Fleck, who made his self-produced debut
album with the Flecktones in 1989. And clearly, nobody's put it all together with the deft touch, daring and spacey humor of his
group - who headline tonight (sold out) and tomorrow at the Keswick Theater.
For a clue to their underlying attitude - check out the group's latest album, "Outbound," which branches out even further with talents
ranging from Yes vocalist Jon Anderson and folky Shawn Colvin to the Tuvan throat singer Ondar and tabla master Sandip Burman.
Or call up their official Web site - www.flecktones.com. The group's mascot is a hippo flying through space, for heaven's sake!
Nowadays, more and more people are getting with the plan, realizing that an artist who can smartly mix disparate genres is not
doing a disservice to any of them, but bringing new listeners to the table.
In recent years, the Flecktones have garnered the Playboy Readers' Poll for best jazz group, and Fleck has been honored by both
Jazziz and JazzTimes with a "best miscellaneous instrument" prize.
More telling, Bela Fleck is the only musician in history to be recognized with Grammy nominations in pop, jazz, bluegrass, spoken
word and country categories.
Come 2001, he may have to add classical to that clump as well. "I'm working on an album for Sony Classics, mostly duets of Bach,
Beethoven, Scarlatti and Chopin," Fleck shared in a recent chat from Nashville, his home base. "It'll be the first time the banjo has
ever been the featured instrument on a major classical label," added the artist, whose name honors the noted composer of modern
classical music Bela Bartok.
Fleck is also getting his feet wet in the classical music of India with master percussionist Sandip Burman, his special guest at
tonight's Keswick show - coaxing sitarlike tunings and fleet-fingered runs out of his banjo.
"I'm a beginner," he says humbly. "We're doing one full-out raga in the show, and I'm trying as best I can to follow the rules. A raga
is improvised within a very structured framework, not all that different from bebop. You have to stay within the notes you're allowed
to play. It's very hard for musicians who're used to doing anything they want."
These days, it just ain't the music elite that are warming to his work. The past two summers, Fleck and company successfully faced
stadium-sized crowds as either the special guest or warm-up act for his good buddies the Dave Matthews Band - another crossover
phenomenon with serious musical chops.
"They're one of the real things out there," Fleck says with a hint of awe. "There's a lot of junk and prefab on the pop scene, but
they're playing really well, writing creative music. It's very rare when you can have other bands as friends, but they're very giving to
us. Dave's appeared on my albums and I've been on his. Carter, their drummer, has appeared on [Flecktones bassist] Victor's
[Wooten] solo album. There's a healthy interaction."
Devotees of jam bands - spoon-fed as babies on the easy alliances of rock, country, blues and jazz dished by the Grateful Dead -
have likewise embraced the Flecktones as their own. That's why the group now winds up playing on groove-a-delic festival bills
alongside the likes of String Cheese Incident, moe., Galactic and Medeski, Martin and Wood. At one such show this summer, our
banjo ace even got to trading licks with turntable scratcher DJ Logic on a wild version of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" that one critic
called "an open-minded vision for music in the new millennium."
"I'm happy there's a movement in music that people would consider us a part of, but we're not really a jam band," Fleck allows with
a laugh. "We have so much structure in our music. We don't just play a chord and take it out. And culturally, we're not the same as
jam bands, not a bunch of college-age kids coming out of rock.
"We're lifer, virtuoso wannabes. We're coming from the realms of classical, jazz and bluegrass music that stress a high virtuosity.
Not that there isn't that in other music, but it's coming from a more formal place with us, rather than being a bunch of guys who
played together and turned their pastime into a career."
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