Bela Fleck, banjo’s Renaissance man, is the first to admit he’s in a privileged place.
“I’m proudest of getting to play with some of the great musicians in the world. That’s an amazing thing. A lot of banjo players don’t get to play with a lot of the musicians I get to play with,” says Fleck.
Nor are many banjo players as musically well versed and versatile as this New York City native. Such are his talents that he seemingly can play as comfortably in jazz or country, bluegrass or classical, folk and more. On a recent weekend, he played in separate jazz, bluegrass and classical concerts.
Along the way Fleck has been credited with redefining the banjo.
“If I’m not doing something new, I’m very unhappy,” he explains. “If I’m not playing the best I can play or finding some new directions to put it into, I’m not happy. I do feel I’m doing things others aren’t doing. But, on the other hand, there are people who are doing things I’m not doing.”
Fleck seems constantly to be doing so many things, working in a variety of contexts and with such a diversity of artists, in addition to leading his critically-acclaimed, banjo-driven and genre busting quartet, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, since it formed in 1989.
Rounding out the group are founding members Victor Wooten on bass and the intriguingly monikered Future Man on percussion, vocals and Synth-Axe Drumitar (his hybrid guitar/synth/drum machine invention). Jeff Coffin is the stellar saxophonist.
Fleck began the new century in signing a five-album deal with Sony Music, calling for two classical albums, and three for Columbia Records: a solo effort for the jazz division and two CDs by the Flecktones.
“Outbound” is the first of that quintet, featuring the Flecktones performing with an array of guests, including Jon Anderson of Yes; vocalist Shawn Colvin; guitarist Adrian Belew; keyboardist John Medeski of Medeski, Martin & Wood; oboe player Paul McCandless; bassist Edgar Meyer; bassoonist Paul Hanson; steel drummer Andy Narell; Indian tabla player Sandip Burman; Indian classical singer Rita Sahal; and the singularly named Tuvan throat singer Ondar.
The CD won the best contemporary jazz album Grammy in February of this year. Fleck also shared the Grammy for “best country instrumental performance” with Alison Brown for “Leaving Cottondale” from the album Fair Weather.
Fleck is the only musician to be nominated in his career for Grammys in jazz, bluegrass, pop, country, spoken word, Christian, composition and world music categories.
Playing with new people is a way to stay energized for Fleck. “Playing with the same people a long time is a great thing too,” he adds. “My relationship with the Flecktones has grown and developed.”
The goal is to achieve a balance of having a long musical relationship with people, while constantly introducing new people to your world. “There’s nothing like playing with somebody new to bring out something new in yourself,” Fleck says.
Collaboration is part of that growth process, he says. “You have to be willing to not have it end up the way you would have done it if you had done it on your own. That has to be cool,” he explains. “You have to be willing to go to the other side and allow yourself to be changed and transformed by the collaboration. If you can get something new you haven’t done before, you’ve really won the game.”
”Outbound” brews a stew of bluegrass, world beat and jazz, among other ingredients.
It is another tasty chapter in an impressively experimental body of work.
In 1997, Fleck guested with Mike Marshall on composer-classical bassist Edgar Meyer’s “Uncommon Ritual,” a project embracing classical, bluegrass and jazz for Sony Classical. It followed Meyer’s “Appalachia Waltz” with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Mark O’Conner.
Marshall, who was featured on mandolin, guitar, mandocello and mandola, is an alumnus of the David Grisman Quartet, Montreux and Modern Mandolin Quartet. Fleck, an alumnus of the New Grass Revival, played both banjo and guitar on the album. Meyer also was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Writing for Fleck, Marshall and himself, Meyer says meant crafting music that focused on each musician’s gifts. He praises Fleck for being “great at looking for another way to do things, another way to skin the cat.” That, he adds, requires real mental agility and perseverance.
“Uncommon Ritual” proved to be an enjoyable experiment, says Fleck. “It was very acoustic, very communication-oriented. You just keep trying to make in-roads, try to do the best music you can do. We pushed it as hard as we possibly could. The amount of care and love that goes into these records is pretty astounding. It’s been pretty much the main focus for five or six months, and we started writing six months before the recording. It takes a lot of energy.”
Meyer says he finds it unnatural to be restricted to certain styles, an opinion that Fleck obviously shares.
Fleck says he has been performing long enough now – more than a quarter of a century – that the longevity factor is starting to come into play. “It’s very satisfying. There’s now an audience built up over that time that wants to hear me do this (variety of music). That’s really an amazing turn of events,” he says.
There’s even a certain, perhaps good, pressure, he says. “Now people think, ‘He better give me cool stuff or I’m going to be disappointed.’“
Fleck says when he was in New Grass Revival he felt an expectation to keep it simple. “For a while I was trying to restrain my writing and make it less and less complex so people could relate to it. Now there really are no limits. There’s an audience that wants to hear it. It’s really fun for me. A lot of people don’t get to do what they want to do.”
If “Uncommon Ritual” or another project has helped to push the boundaries of what is considered classical music, then so be it, says Fleck. “Fresh blood is always a good thing. I think we are trying to get to what’s good, not what isn’t.
Sony Classical has an opportunity to reach people with some music they might not otherwise hear. In this country we have very few direct lines to the people out there if you’re not in the main flow.
“If you’re not doing pop or vocal music, there are very few avenues to get to an audience out there. And there is an audience out there of a lot of people who would like it.”
Fleck looks back on “Uncommon Ritual” as the beginning of a new area of exploration for him. “The record was really, really exciting,” he says. “The coolest thing about it is actually playing these classical pieces, just learning.”
No less cool, suggests Fleck, is the opportunity to play with the Flecktones, who he says “are some of the most amazing players on the planet.”
Those players decided to experiment in making the 1998 album, “Left of Cool.” It was the Grammy Award-winning group’s first album with vocals.
They gave themselves the freedom to play whatever sounded good to them, says Fleck, who played guitar on a Flecktones album for the first time.
Each musician was encouraged to play several different instruments. Taking these chances led to a heightened atmosphere of creativity.
Future Man sang lead vocals as his alter-ego Royel. Dave Matthews added guest vocals on two songs, “Communication” and “Trouble and Strife.” Amy Grant sang on “Step Quiet.” (Fleck played banjo on the Dave Matthews Band’s “Before These Crowded Streets” album.)
Fleck sees the music he makes with the Flecktones filed under an amazing number of categories, including country, jazz, contemporary jazz, New Age, world beat, bluegrass, folk and alternative. “We find ourselves in so many different categories. I can believe it. We fit all of them,” he says. Most of the time, it usually can be found under contemporary jazz or bluegrass, he adds.
Fleck is enjoying exploring the many facets of the creative process. “The amazing thing about music is the profound effect it can have on other people,” he says. “When I think about the kind of effort and love we put into it, it makes sense. This isn’t (fast food) hamburgers we’re talking about. We’re cooking something special for somebody.”