Jazzed Banjo

September 2, 2007 on 6:34 pm | In Uncategorized |

Let me first admit that I hadn’t been paying attention. I knew Bela Fleck played banjo, and that I’d heard him on Folk Alley and on Folk On WGBH. Also he’s appeared once in awhile on my David Grisman Pandora “station”. So I guess I expected something folksy or blue-grassy when I went to see him and his Flecktones at the Summer Music Series at Boardinghouse Park in Lowell, Massachusetts on Friday.

If I’d been paying attention I would have known that the Flecktones won Grammys for best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2001 and 2007. Nor am I complaining - Bela Fleck and the Flecktones on Friday performed one of the best live concerts I’ve heard in years. Resembling at times Weather Report, (ironic considering I’d spent all day looking for weather reports to see if the predicted showers would force a venue change) they produced a smooth electric fusion sound that ranged from hard and high energy to ethereal and almost meditative.

My wife and I showed up 45 minutes before the concert started and still had to sit way in the back row just before the sidewalk. So when I saw the drummer, “Futureman” (Roy Wooten), walk on stage wearing a tricorner hat and playing an instrument that resembled, from the distant vantage point, a cross between a guitar and bagpipes I had to leave the concert. But only long enough to run back to the parking garage and get my binoculars from the car, to better see what the hell that thing was!

Binoculars didn’t help. It took the power of Google after the concert was over to discover that “Futch”, as he’s known, was playing the Drumitar, a guitar/electronic drumkit/systhesizer hybrid he invented. And the same spirit of innovation and musical adventure suffuses the entire band. All the musicians only nominally play what they appear to be playing: the bass guitar played by Victor Wooten (brother of Roy), the various saxes played by Jeff Coffin, who also played flute and recorder, and Bela’s banjo, were all talking (singing?) to banks of synthesizers.

But all the digital devices didn’t obscure the digits that count the most - the talented fingers of the Flecktones. The concert was a joy from start to finish, and featured long solos by every musician and plenty of high-intensity collaborative improvisation. Near the end Bela finally went acoustic on us, in a long banjo solo playing tribute to standards ranging from “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”. When the rain finally came it didn’t dampen anything but our clothes - the energy stayed high and the audience demanded and received a final encore before we let them go home. I promise to pay attention from now on.