Fleck, Bela
Bela Fleck
Banjo player, composer
Bela Fleck is an acknowledged master of the five-string banjo. An unassuming artist whose virtuoso performances fuse jazz, rock, Irish balladry, and blue-grass, Fleck fronts a band that cannot possibly be classified as strictly bluegrass or even “new grass.” His is an original style, a hip, urban sound that just happens to come from a backwoods instrument. Time magazine contributor John Elson called Fleck “the Paganini, or maybe the Jimi Hendrix,” of the banjo, noting that the three-time Grammy Award nominee has taken “this jangling folk instrument into jazz, classical music, and beyond.”
Fleck never touched a banjo until he was fourteen, but by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he was cutting solo albums and picking with the New Grass Revival, a premier bluegrass band. His later work, with the Flecktones, is more likely to be heard on jazz radio stations than on country shows. “I wanted to play like [pianist] Chick Corea,” Fleck disclosed in Down Beat magazine. “I could look up and down the banjo neck and everything was there that you needed to play the notes, but no one had come up with the technique to play it. I started working on things most musicians work out on for most instruments, like working on scales, finding a way to play the chords. There was nothing remarkable about the things I did except that they were on the banjo.”
Bela Fleck was born and raised in New York City, an unlikely environment from which to pull a love of the banjo. He and his brother lived with their mother, a public school teacher. “I never met my father,” Fleck declared in Time. “He taught German for a living but was crazy about classical music. He named me after Bela Bartok, the Hungarian composer. He named my brother Ludwig after Beethoven. It was rough. The torture started in kindergarten.”
Fleck was just about ready to start kindergarten when he had his first brush with the banjo. Like many Americans, he initially heard the instrument in the theme music of the 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies. Fleck recalled in Time that he and his brother were watching the show at his grandparents’ house. “The theme music started, and I had no idea it was the banjo,” he said. “It was Earl Scruggs in his prime. I only remember hearing something beautiful. It called out to me.”
Other musical influences intervened, however. Fleck learned to play guitar and was influenced by pop and rock as a youngster. Then, at 14, he saw the film Deliverance, with its “Duelling Banjos” bluegrass theme. “The sound of the banjo just killed me,” he remembered in Time. “It’s like hearing mercury.”
For the Record…
Born c. 1958 in New York, NY; son of a public school teacher. Education: Graduated from the New York High School of Music and Art, 1976; studied banjo under Tony Trischka, Erik Darling, and Mark Horowitz.
Banjo player and composer, 1976—. Played with Boston-based band Tasty Licks, 1976-79; member, with Jim Gaudreau and Glenn Lawson, of the group Spectrum, 1979-81; joined New Grass Revival, 1982; group disbanded, 1991; formed group Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, c. 1989 (other members include Howard Levy on keyboards, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, and Roy Wooten on Drumitar). Also cut albums as a solo artist and has done studio work in Nashville with Loretta Lynn, the Statler Brothers, Randy Travis, and others. Has made television appearances, with the New Grass Revival and the Flecktones, on Hee Haw, Nashville Now, and the Lonesome Pine Specials.
Selected awards: Three Grammy Award nominations for instrumental solos; named top banjo player in the nation by Frets readers’ poll more than six times since 1981.
Addresses: Record company —Warner Bros., 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505-4694.
The shy and overweight teenager bought a banjo and began to spend up to eight hours a day locked in his room, experimenting with the instrument. He was accepted into Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art, but since the banjo was not considered a serious instrument there, he played guitar and studied music theory. He took private banjo lessons with three teachers, Tony Trischka, Erik Darling, and Mark Horowitz. He also learned, as most bluegrass musicians do, from listening to and imitating such bluegrass pioneers as Scruggs and J. D. Crowe.
As soon as he graduated from high school in 1976, Fleck moved to Boston and took a job with the blue-grass band Tasty Licks. In 1979 he moved south to Lexington, Kentucky, to help form the group Spectrum. Fleck confessed to a Time correspondent that his first exposure to Southern bluegrass was a “big culture shock.” He added: “I was a little cocky, but down South, they didn’t think I sounded so great because I lacked tone and I didn’t have a great sense of rhythm. They were right.”
Fleck perfected his technique and cut his first solo album, Crossing the Tracks, in 1980. Two years later he joined Sam Bush, John Cowan, and Pat Flynn in the New Grass Revival. Throughout the 1980s the New Grass Revival offered a benchmark for experimental bluegrass. Stereo Review correspondent Alanna Nash proclaimed the band “the ultimate progressive supergroup” with “its own unique, indescribable, and innovative blend of jazz, rock, reggae, gospel, [rhythm and blues], and whatever else strikes its fancy.”
Almost every New Grass Revival album features an instrumental with Fleck as principal performer and composer. Among these are the Grammy-nominated “Seven by Seven,” “Big Foot,” and the popular “Metric Lips.” Nash commented that some of Fleck’s riffs on the New Grass albums are so hot that the artist “probably had to cool off in the shower between takes.”
The New Grass Revival disbanded in 1991, each member going his own way but holding out the option for a reunion in the future. In Fleck’s case, the split offered an opportunity to play more jazz-oriented material. He formed the Flecktones in 1990 with a pair of brothers, Victor and Roy Wooten, on bass and Drumitar, and added Howard Levy on keyboards and harmonica. The group’s albums have sold well to jazz enthusiasts, while Fleck continues to appear at the more progressive bluegrass festivals—especially the annual affair in Telluride, Colorado.
In The Big Book of Bluegrass, Fleck discussed his artistic goals and his position in the music business. “I think I just have to follow the path where the music leads me and play as many different kinds of things as I can,” he said. “Basically, I try not to take it all too seriously. As Alan Munde once said, It’s only a banjo.’ I mean, how seriously can you take it? ‘It’s like being the best kazoo player in the world.”
Critics have taken it seriously indeed. Elson concluded that Fleck’s work “is pure revelation.… His technique is always at the service of a sophisticated musical imagination that can make the [banjo] sound as if it were born to play jazz.”
Selected discography
Solo albums
Crossing the Tracks, Rounder, 1980.
Natural Bridge, Rounder, 1982.
Daybreak, Rounder, 1987.
(With Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor, and others) Inroads, Rounder, 1987.
Places, Rounder, 1988.
Double Time, Rounder.
Drive, Rounder.
With Tasty Licks
Anchored to the Shore, Rounder.
Tasty Licks, Rounder.
With Spectrum
Opening Roll, Rounder.
Spectrum Live in Japan, Rounder.
Too Hot for Words, Rounder.
With the New Grass Revival
Deviation, Rounder, 1985.
On the Boulevard, Sugar Hill, 1985.
New Grass Revival, EMI America, 1986.
Hold to a Dream, Capitol, 1988.
Friday Night in America, Capitol, 1989.
The New Grass Revival Live, Sugar Hill, 1989.
New Grass Anthology, Capitol, 1990.
With the Flecktones
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Warner Bros., 1990.
Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, Warner Bros., 1991.
UFO Tofu, Warner Bros., 1992.
Sources
Books
Kochman, Marilyn, editor, The Big Book of Bluegrass, Morrow, 1984.
Periodicals
Bluegrass Unlimited, November 1978.
Chicago, December 1986.
Down Beat, July 1986; July 1988; August 1991.
Guitar Player, February 1989; July 1990.
People, May 25, 1992.
Rolling Stone, July 13, 1989.
Stereo Review, May 1985; January 1988; November 1988; September 1990.
Time, June 11, 1990.
Variety, July 4, 1990.
—Anne Janette Johnson
Fleck, Béla
Fleck, Béla
Banjoist, composer
Béla Fleck is an acknowledged master of the five-string banjo. An unassuming artist whose virtuoso performances fuse jazz, rock, Irish balladry, and bluegrass, Fleck cannot possibly be confined to a strict genre or even considered "new grass." His is an original style, a hip, urban sound that just happens to come from a uniquely American instrument traditionally stereotyped as being anything but sophisticated. Time magazine contributor John Elson called Fleck "the Paganini, or maybe the Jimi Hendrix," of the banjo, noting that the Grammy Award winner has taken "this jangling folk instrument into jazz, classical music, and beyond."
Fleck never touched a banjo until he was fourteen, but by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he was cutting solo albums and picking with the New Grass Revival, a premier bluegrass band. His later work, with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, is more likely to be heard on jazz radio stations than on country stations. "I wanted to play like pianist Chick Corea," Fleck disclosed in an interview with Down Beat magazine. "I could look up and down the banjo neck and everything was there that you needed to play the notes, but no one had come up with the technique to play it. I started working on things most musicians work out on for most instruments, like working on scales, finding a way to play the chords. There was nothing remarkable about the things I did except that they were on the banjo."
Fleck was born and raised in New York City. He and his brother lived with their mother, a public school teacher. "I never met my father," Fleck declared in Time. "He taught German for a living but was crazy about classical music. He named me after Béla Bartok, the Hungarian composer. He named my brother Ludwig after Beethoven. It was rough. The torture started in kindergarten."
Fleck was just about ready to start kindergarten when he had his first brush with the banjo. Like many Americans, he initially heard the instrument in the theme music of the 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies. Fleck recalled in Time that he and his brother were watching the show at his grandparents' house. "The theme music started, and I had no idea it was the banjo," he said. "It was Earl Scruggs in his prime. I only remember hearing something beautiful. It called out to me."
Other musical influences intervened, however. Fleck learned to play guitar and was influenced by pop and rock as a youngster. Then, at 14, he saw the film Deliverance, with its "Duelling Banjos" bluegrass theme. "The sound of the banjo just killed me," he remembered in Time. "It's like hearing mercury."
He got his first banjo at age 15 in 1973. "Some people say banjo is an instrument you either love or hate," said Fleck. "For me I just instantly loved it. I couldn't put it down for days. I didn't want to go to sleep. I got up early to play it. I thought about it in my spare time. On the bus to school I was thinking about it. I was so excited to get home and play it again. I tried to play other instruments, but nothing else ever really caught on, nothing else called out to me that way."
He began to spend up to eight hours a day locked in his room, experimenting with the instrument. He was accepted into Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, but since the banjo was not considered a serious instrument there, he played guitar and studied music theory. He took private banjo lessons with three teachers, Tony Trischka, Erik Darling, and Mark Horowitz. He also learned, as many bluegrass musicians do, from listening to and imitating such bluegrass pioneers as Scruggs and J. D. Crowe. He also was absorbing musical ideas from additional, seemingly disparate, sources such as Yes, Charlie Parker, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Return to Forever.
As soon as he graduated from high school in 1976, Fleck moved to Boston and took a job with the bluegrass band Tasty Licks. In 1979 he moved south to Lexington, Kentucky, to help form the group Spectrum. Fleck confessed to a Time correspondent that his first exposure to Southern bluegrass was a "big culture shock." He added: "I was a little cocky, but down South, they didn't think I sounded so great because I lacked tone and I didn't have a great sense of rhythm. They were right." Fleck perfected his technique and cut his first solo album, Crossing the Tracks, in 1980.
He joined Sam Bush, John Cowan, and Pat Flynn in the New Grass Revival in 1981. The band, of which he and Flynn were the newest members, were all ready well known for pushing the acceptable musical limits of bluegrass. Throughout the 1980s the New Grass Revival continued to raise the bar and musically experiment. Stereo Review correspondent Alanna Nash proclaimed the band "the ultimate progressive supergroup" with "its own unique, indescribable, and innovative blend of jazz, rock, reggae, gospel, rhythm and blues, and whatever else strikes its fancy."
Almost every New Grass Revival album recorded since Fleck's arrival features an instrumental withhim as its principal performer and composer. Among these are the Grammy-nominated "Seven by Seven," "Big Foot," and the popular "Metric Lips."
New Grass Revival disbanded in 1991. Fleck and Bush have played together live and in the studio since on Bush solo releases from 1996's Glamour & Grits to Ice Caps: Peaks of Telluride, released in 2000. Bush has reciprocated, appearing as a guest on Fleck's solo and band projects. Perhaps the best example of this synergy is Strength in Numbers, a one-off recording project with Fleck, Bush, Jerry Douglas (dobro), Mark O'Connor (guitar/mandolin), and Edgar Meyer (bass). The group was "sort of the de facto house band" at Telluride for years when they recorded a single album under the moniker. Fleck also performed on various other artists' recordings throughout the decade including Andy Statman, Ginger Baker, Rhonda Vincent, and Dave Matthews Band.
For Fleck, this freedom from the constraints of a band and genre offered him an opportunity to play more jazz-oriented material. As Seth Rogovoy pointed out in a 1996 article, Fleck has taken the banjo, "from its fixed role as a lead instrument in the traditional bluegrass ensemble, restored it to its long-forgotten home in the jazz band, and by recognizing no limitations on its potential, transformed the way it is played and imagined."
He formed Béla Fleck and the Flecktones in 1990 with a pair of brothers, Victor and Roy (a.k.a. Future Man) Wooten, on bass and Drumitar, and added Howard Levy on keyboards and harmonica. Jeff Coffin would join the group well after Levy's 1992 departure. Their music has been embraced enthusiastically by the jam band community. Fleck has recorded with several notable bands in this genre including Phish, Government Mule, and Leftover Salmon and he frequently appears at numerous music festivals, including bluegrass, jazz, jamband, and world music festivals.
For the Record . . .
Born c. 1958 in New York, NY; son of a public school teacher.
Played with Boston-based bluegrass band Tasty Licks, 1976-79; member, with Jim Gaudreau and Glenn Law son, of the group Spectrum, 1979-81; joined New Grass Revival, 1981; group disbanded, 1991; formed group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, c. 1989 (other members include Howard Levy on keyboards, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, and Future Man (a.k.a. Roy Wooten) on Drumitar). Also cut albums as a solo artist and has done studio work in Nashville with Loretta Lynn, the Statler Brothers, Randy Travis, Sam Bush, and others. Has made television appearances, with the New Grass Revival and the Flecktones, on Hee Haw, Nashville Now, and the Lonesome Pine Specials ; continued exploring limits of the instrument in experimental recordings, including a recording of classic masterworks on banjo and the three-disc Little Worlds, released in 2003.
Awards: Named top banjo player in the nation by Frets readers' poll more than six times since 1981; Grammy Awards: Best Country Instrumental Performance (with Asleep at the Wheel) for "Hightower," 1995; Best Pop Instrumental Performance (with the Flecktones) for "The Sinister Mister," 1996; Best Instrumental Composition (with the Flecktones) for "Almost 12," 1998; Best Contemporary Jazz Album (with the Flecktones) for Out-bound, 2000; Best Country Instrumental Performance (with Alison Brown) for "Leaving Cottondale" from Fair Weather, 2000; Best Classical Crossover Album for Perpetual Motion, 2001; Best Instrumental Arrangement (with Edgar Meyer) for Claude Debussy's "Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum" from Perpetual Motion, 2001.
Addresses: Record company— Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment Inc., 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022-3211. Booking— Joe Brauner, Monterey Peninsula Artists, 509 Hartnell St., Monterey, CA 93940, e-mail: [email protected]. Management— David Bendett, David Bendett Artists, Inc., 2431 Briarcrest Rd., Beverly Hills, CA 90210, e-mail: [email protected]. Website— Béla Fleck Official Website: http://www.flecktones.com.
After a decade-long relationship with the Warner Bros. label, Fleck signed a five-record deal with Sony's Columbia Records. This package stipulated that he would record two projects for release on Sony Classical, a solo album, and two discs with the Flecktones. The first of these was Outbound, released in 2000. William Ruhlmann, writing in an oblique review on All MusicGuide, essentially called the project a random mess. "Fleck really offers no defense to the charge of being a musical dilettante, he simply celebrates the surface pleasures of different varieties of music, offering an overlapping series of appetizers," he wrote. "A fan of any particular style is liable to feel that it has been trivialized, but Fleck doesn't mean any harm. His music represents the pursuit of facileness as a musical goal, one that he and his band achieve with alacrity."
Fleck seemed to fare better with the critics with 1995's Tales from the Acoustic Planet. This project combined both jazz and bluegrass, featuring guest artists from both worlds: Chick Corea, Branford Marsalis, Douglas, Meyer, and Bush. The credo adopted by Fleck and his mates is virtuosity. If someone can play their chosen instrument expressively, the music being played is incidental. "Béla's bad, man," said Marsalis, who first played on UFO Tofu with Fleck, to Down Beat in 1997. "Béla just has that thing. When you hear the music, you say, 'Yeah, I'm down,' and that's the true test for me. ... It was one of the original jazz instruments, but it was mostly a strumming, picking instrument. ...Even banjo solos were just like 'chink chinka chink,' which is not what Béla's doing at all. He's playing the goddamn thing."
Perhaps no other album to date has attempted to combine all these influences in one package than 2003's ambitious Little Worlds. Guest artists on the three-disc set included Bobby McFerrin, Marsalis, The Chieftains, Douglas, and Bush. Jason MacNeil, music critic for the online publication PopMatters, said it appeared adopted the "everything but the kitchen sink to pad albums and give fans more than they anticipated and, in some cases, even wanted" approach. "Béla Fleck has decided to try the same format." A second single disc was released at the same time. MacNeil called the full project, "Long, average and thoroughly unappealing, unless you are the ultimate Fleck fanatic."
But Down Beat 's Jason Koransky observed similarities to Weather Report, the great jazz group of the 1970s and 1980s known for its improvisational prowess. He said the project "stands as a milestone, and ... offers the best song-writing and production of the Flecktones' recording career."
In The Big Book of Bluegrass, Fleck discussed his artistic goals and his position in the music business. "I think I just have to follow the path where the music leads me and play as many different kinds of things as I can," he said. "Basically, I try not to take it all too seriously. As Alan Munde once said, 'It's only a banjo.' I mean, how seriously can you take it? It's like being the best kazoo player in the world."
Critics have taken it seriously indeed. Elson concluded that Fleck's work "is pure revelation. ... His technique is always at the service of a sophisticated musical imagination that can make the banjo sound as if it were born to play jazz."
Selected discography
Solo
Crossing the Tracks, Rounder, 1980.
Natural Bridge, Rounder, 1982.
Daybreak, Rounder, 1987.
Places, Rounder, 1988.
Drive, Rounder, 1988.
Tales From the Acoustic Planet, Warner, 1994.
The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2, Warner, 1999.
Perpetual Motion, Sony, 2001.
Ten From Little Worlds, Columbia, 2003.
Little Worlds (3-CD set), Columbia, 2003.
With the New Grass Revival
Deviation, Rounder, 1985.
On the Boulevard, Sugar Hill, 1985.
New Grass Revival, EMI America, 1986.
Hold to a Dream, Capitol, 1988.
Friday Night in America, Capitol, 1989.
The New Grass Revival Live, Sugar Hill, 1989.
New Grass Anthology, Capitol, 1990.
With Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Warner Bros., 1990.
Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, Warner Bros., 1991.
UFO Tofu, Warner Bros., 1992.
Three Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Warner, 1993.
Left of Cool, Warner, 1998.
Outbound, Columbia, 2000.
Live at the Quick (DVD), Columbia, 2002.
With others
(With Tasty Licks) Anchored to the Shore, Rounder, 1979.
(With Spectrum) Opening Roll, Rounder, 1980. (With Spectrum) Spectrum Live in Japan, Rounder, 1983.
(With Jerry Douglas, Mark O'Connor, and others) Inroads, Rounder, 1987.
(With Strength in Numbers) The Telluride Sessions, MCA, 1989.
(With Spectrum) Too Hot for Words, Rounder, 1990.
(With Asleep at the Wheel) The Wheel Keeps on Rollin', Capitol, 1995.
(With Tasty Licks) Tasty Licks, Rounder, 1997.
(With Alison Brown) Fair Weather, Compass, 2000.
Sources
Books
Kochman, Marilyn, editor, The Big Book of Bluegrass, Morrow, 1984.
Periodicals
Billboard, March 4, 1995; October 10, 1998.
Bluegrass Unlimited, November 1978.
Chicago, December 1986.
Down Beat, July 1986; July 1988; August 1991; March 1997; October 2003.
Guitar Player, February 1989; July 1990.
People, May 25, 1992.
Rolling Stone, July 13, 1989.
Stereo Review, May 1985; January 1988; November 1988; September 1990.
Time, June 11, 1990.
Variety, July 4, 1990.
Online
"Béla Fleck," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (January 26, 2004).
"Béla Fleck and the Flecktones," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (January 24, 2004).
"Béla Fleck & The Flecktones: Little Worlds (Special Edition)," PopMatters, http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/f/fleckBéla-littleworlds.shtml (January 25, 2004).
"Béla Fleck: Born To Play Banjo," The Berkshire (MA) Eagle, http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy/interviews/fleck.html (January 25, 2004).
—Anne Janette Johnson andLinda Dailey Paulson
Fleck, Bela
BELA FLECK
Born: New York, New York, 10 July 1958
Genre: Bluegrass, Jazz, World
Best-selling album since 1990: Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 2—The Bluegrass Sessions (1999)
Bela Fleck is one of the giants in the progressive music scene. His unique prowess on the five-string banjo stretches musical boundaries and imaginations. Through a passionate fascination for an instrument generally associated with rural music, he is recognized as an affable and innovative performer/composer who utilizes the banjo to fuse bluegrass, jazz, ethnic, funk, and classical music genres into his own distinct style.
Discovering the Banjo
Fleck was born in New York City and raised there by his mother, a schoolteacher. His father, who had a strong interest in classical music, gave him the name Bela (pronounced BAY-lah) after Béla Bartók, the great Hungarian composer. His parents separated when he was one, and Bela has no memories of his father. Fleck's interest in the banjo began as a child, when he heard the theme song for the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. Later he gained entrance into the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art for his abilities on the guitar. However, after hearing the banjo in the film Deliverance at age fifteen, he became captivated and completely devoted to the instrument. The high school did not acknowledge the banjo as an appropriate instrument, so Fleck was assigned to study the French horn, which he flunked. He ended up fulfilling his music credits by singing in a choir. Meanwhile, he played the banjo at every opportunity, practicing up to eight hours a day.
There were not many musicians playing the banjo in New York City in the 1970s, and gaining acceptance into any kind of music scene was difficult for Fleck at first. Eventually he found some college musicians for impromptu jam sessions and began studying privately, first with Erik Darling, later with Marc Horowitz, and finally with the banjo veteran Tony Trischka. (Trischka and the legendary Earl Scruggs are Fleck's biggest influences.) After high school graduation in 1976, Fleck moved to Boston to honor a promise to his mother that he attend college. He enrolled in the Julliard Extension School but had already gained a solid reputation as a banjo player and quit to pursue music professionally. His first band was a Boston-based bluegrass group called Tasty Licks, which featured the bluegrass ambassador Jack Tottle on mandolin.
Heading South
By 1979 Fleck had moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he formed a progressive bluegrass group called Spectrum, which made three albums. He also cut his first solo album, Crossing the Tracks (1979), which featured Pat Enright, Sam Bush, and the prodigiously skilled Mark O'Connor. Only twenty-one years old, Fleck had already become one of the beacons of progressive music. As a founder of the progressive supergroup New Grass Revival, he fervently combined the musical base of bluegrass with other styles and creatively expanded the possibilities of the banjo's sound as radically as Charlie Parker had those of the saxophone.
New Grass Revival broke up in 1989, and Fleck created the Flecktones, with Howard Levy on keyboards and the brothers Victor and Roy Wooten on bass and percussion, respectively. The quartet immediately began pushing the musical envelope. Despite the progressive nature of the music, the New Grass Revival albums and most of Fleck's other work generally ended up in the bluegrass and country sections of music stores. However, Bela Fleck and the Flecktone's second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991), topped the jazz charts. Their fourth album, Left of Cool (1998), gave way to a "blu-bop" sound with more emphasis on horns. It features Dave Matthews on vocals. One special cut from the album is a funky take on one of Fleck's signature compositions, "Big Country." In 2000, the group released Outbound and shaded it with Irish and South African sounds and rhythms.
Fleck and his Flecktones captured the essence of their concert performances in Live at the Quick (2002). Long known for an accessible and lighthearted quality in his live performances, Fleck will wander through the audience, delighting them with a seemingly endless musical stream of consciousness, playing snippets from classical to blue-grass on his banjo. As a tribute to the first time he heard the banjo, Fleck generally mixes in some musical arrangement from the The Beverly Hillbillies theme.
Solo Projects
In between recordings and concerts with the Fleck-tones, Fleck has ventured several solo projects that have allowed him to work with musicians from different genres. His Tales from the Acoustic Planet (1994) is a gathering of musical friends whose talents Fleck holds in highest regard. Contributing to the album is an all-star cast featuring virtuoso jazz keyboardist Chick Corea along with guitar maven Tony Rice and renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis. In 1999 Fleck recorded Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 2—The Bluegrass Sessions (1999) with another amazing guest roster that includes Rice along with long-time playing mates Sam Bush, Mark Schatz, and Jerry Douglas. Vince Gill, Tim O'Brien, Vassar Clements, the late John Hartford, and Ricky Skaggs also appear, but the guest of honor is bluegrass legend and Fleck's most esteemed musical influence—Earl Scruggs. They pay homage to the banjo and each other in a dazzling duet of the traditional "Home Sweet Home." This album features a joyously wide range of musical style, including a polka in "Clarinet Polka," traditional bluegrass in "Ode to Earl" (dedicated to Scruggs), and the stately "Overgrown Waltz."
Classical Banjo
When Fleck inked a five-record deal with Sony in 2000, he became the first banjo player to sign a classical record contract. He explores uncharted banjo territory with Perpetual Motion (2001). This album is a solo effort focusing entirely on the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Scarlatti, and others. It garnered him two Grammy Awards, including Best Classical Crossover Album.
Long considered a studio musician "extraordinaire," Fleck has played on more than 250 albums of various artists. He has been nominated for nineteen Grammy Awards in ten different categories and is a seven-time Grammy winner. His extensive touring schedule included an appearance at the premier bluegrass venue, Merlefest 2003, in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, a celebration of legendary guitarist Doc Watson and his late son, Merle.
By his joyous plunges into any music style of his choice, Fleck and his eclectic banjo skills give fits to critics and others whose job it is to define music. He has redefined the banjo while he carries a torch for the progressive music scene and the fusion of musical genres.
SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:
Crossing the Tracks (Rounder, 1979); Fiddle Tunes for Banjo (Rounder, 1981); Natural Bridge Suite (Rounder, 1982); Double Time (Rounder, 1984); Deviation (Rounder, 1984); Inroads (Rounder, 1986); Drive (Rounder, 1988); Places (Rounder, 1988); Daybreak (Rounder,1988); The Telluride Sessions (Rounder, 1989); Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros., 1990); Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991); Solo Banjo Works (Warner Bros., 1992); UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992); Three Flew over the Cuckoos Nest (Warner Bros., 1993); Tales from the Acoustic Planet (Warner Bros., 1995); Live Art (Warner Bros., 1996); Curandero (Warner Bros., 1996); Left of Cool (Warner Bros., 1998); Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 2 (Warner Bros., 1999); Outbound (Sony, 2000); Perpetual Motion (Sony, 2001).
donald lowe
Fleck, Bela
Fleck, Bela
Fleck, Bela, bluegrass/jazz banjo player, b. N.Y.C., July, 10, 1958. He has played traditional bluegrass, newgrass (with the New Grass Revival), and his own innovative material with his band the Flecktones. He has been in high demand as a session player. Bela Fleck was given his first banjo by his grandfather in 1973, when he was 15 years old. He attended N.Y.C/s H.S. of Music and Art. Early influences were Flatt and Scruggs, Chick Corea and Charlie Parker. Especially inspired by a Corea performance, Fleck moved to Boston in 1976 where he joined Tasty Licks. In 1979 he moved to Ky. and founded Spectrum. Two years later, he joined the New Grass Revival and moved to Nashville. He stayed with them through the 1980s and also released solo albums including the Grammy-nominated Drive, had a jazz band called Banjo Jazz, and produced the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and Maura O’Connell. In 1989 New Grass Revival gave its farewell concert and he founded the Flecktones. After appearances on The Tonight Show and The Today Show as well as two Grammy nominations, the band released 1991’s Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, an album that hit #1 on the jazz charts.
Discography
Crossing the Tracks (1979); Natural Bridge (1982); Deviation (1984); Double Time (1984); Inroads (1986); 60 Plus Series (1987); Day Break (1988); Drive (1988); Places (1988); Bela Fleck The Flecktones (1990); Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991); Ufo Tofu (1992); Three Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1993); Tales from the Acoustic Planet (1995); Live Art (1996).
—Lewis Porter
Fleck, Bela
FLECK, BELA
FLECK, BELA (1958–), U.S. banjo player, guitarist. The New York-born Fleck caught the banjo bug from hearing Homer and Jethro's theme for tv's The Beverly Hillbillies and acquired his first banjo at 15, although he was training as a French horn player at the High School of Music and Art. He spent his evenings playing with a bluegrass band, and it was in that musical genre that he first came to prominence as part of Newgrass Revival, a band that pioneered a fusion of bluegrass, jazz, rock, and country. In 1989 he joined with harmonica player/keyboardist Howard Levy, bassist Victor Lemonte Wooten, and "synth axe drumitar" player Roy "Futureman" Wooten to form the Flecktones, the band he continued to lead. The Flecktones, whose sound owes more to their leader's enthusiasm for Charlie Parker and John Coltrane than to Doc Watson and Bill Monroe, won numerous Grammy awards and made frequent national tv appearances.
bibliography:
S. Hindin, "Bela Fleck," in Down Beat Magazine archives at: www.downbeat.com; N. Torkington, "Interview with Bela, April 21, 1996," at: http://prometheus.frii.com.
[George Robinson (2nd ed.)]