| Béla Fleck | |
|---|---|
Fleck performing on February 9, 2007. |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Béla Anton Leoš Fleck |
| Born | July 10, 1958 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Origin | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz, jazz fusion, Bluegrass, folk, classical, World music |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter, composer, |
| Instruments | Banjo, guitar, dobro, mandolin |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Associated acts | Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Trio!, Chick Corea, Strength in Numbers, New Grass Revival, Sparrow Quartet |
| Website | www.BelaFleck.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Deering Crossfire electric banjo with custom pickups and synthesizer pickup | |
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck (born July 10, 1958) is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players,[1] he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
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Fleck was born in New York City, New York, and is named after famous Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, Austrian composer Anton Webern,[2] and Czech composer Leoš Janáček.[3] He was drawn to the banjo when he first heard Earl Scruggs play the theme song for the television show Beverly Hillbillies. He received his first banjo at age fifteen from his grandfather (1973).[4][5] Later, Fleck enrolled in New York City's High School of Music and Art where he studied the French horn. He was a banjo student under Tony Trischka.
Almost immediately after high school, Fleck traveled to Boston to play with Jack Tottle, Pat Enright, and Mark Schatz in Tasty Licks. During this period, Fleck released his first solo album (1979): Crossing the Tracks and made his first foray into progressive bluegrass composition.
Fleck played on the streets of Boston with bassist Mark Schatz; and the two, along with guitarist/vocalist Glen Lawson and mandolin great Jimmy Gaudreau, formed Spectrum: the Band in 1981. Fleck toured with Spectrum during 1981. That same year, Sam Bush asked Fleck to join New Grass Revival. Fleck performed with New Grass Revival for nine years. During this time, Fleck recorded another solo album, Drive. It was nominated for a Grammy Award in the then first-time category of "Best Bluegrass Album" (1988).
During the 1980s Fleck and Bush also performed live occasionally with Doc Watson and Merle Watson in various bluegrass festivals, most notably the annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
Béla Fleck and Victor Wooten formed Béla Fleck and the Flecktones in 1988, along with keyboardist and harmonica player Howard Levy and Wooten's percussionist brother Roy "Future Man" Wooten, who played synthesizer-based percussion. Levy left the group in 1992, making the band a trio until saxophonist Jeff Coffin joined the group onstage in 1997. His first studio recording with the band was their 1998 album Left of Cool. Coffin left the group in 2008 to replace Dave Mathews' Band saxophonist, LeRoi Moore. Howard Levy rejoined the Flecktones in 2009. Bela Fleck and the original Flecktones went on to record Rocket Science, and tour in 2011.
With the Flecktones, Fleck has been nominated for and won several Grammy awards. (Cf. Grammy sections below.)
Fleck has shared Grammy wins with Asleep at the Wheel, Alison Brown, and Edgar Meyer. He has been nominated in more categories than any other musician,[3] namely country, pop, jazz, bluegrass, classical, folk, spoken word, composition, and arranging.
In 2001, Fleck collaborated with long-time friend and playing-partner Edgar Meyer to record Perpetual Motion, an album of classical material played on the banjo along with an assortment of accompanists, including John Williams, Evelyn Glennie, Joshua Bell and Gary Hoffman. The album includes selections such as Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 4 in C# minor, Debussy's Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum, and Paganini's Moto Perpetuo (from which is derived the name), as well as more lyrical pieces such as the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, two of Chopin's mazurkas, and two Scarlatti keyboard sonatas. Perpetual Motion won two Grammys at the Grammy Awards of 2002 for Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Arrangement for Fleck and Meyer's arrangement of Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum. Fleck and Meyer have also composed a double concerto for banjo and bass, and performed its debut with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.[3]
Fleck names Chick Corea, Charlie Parker, and the aforementioned Earl Scruggs as influences.[6] He regards Scruggs as "certainly the best" banjo player of the three-finger style.[4]
Solo and with the Flecktones, Fleck has appeared at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Merlefest, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Toronto Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Shakori Hills, Bonnaroo, and Jazzfest, among others.
He has also appeared as a sideman with artists ranging from Tony Rice to Dave Matthews Band to Ginger Baker and Phish. One notable appearance with the Dave Matthews Band, along with the rest of the Flecktones, resulted in the longest singular live song in DMB history, #41, at 32:03 in length.
In 2005, while the Flecktones were on hiatus, Fleck undertook several new projects: recording with African traditional musicians; cowriting a documentary film called Bring it Home about the Flecktones' first year off in 17 years and their reunion after that time; coproducing Song of the Traveling Daughter, the debut album by Abigail Washburn (a young banjo player who mixes bluegrass and Chinese music); forming the acoustic fusion supergroup Trio! with fellows Jean-Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke, and recording an album as a member of the Sparrow Quartet (along with Abigail Washburn, Ben Sollee, and Casey Driessen).
In late 2006, Fleck teamed up with Chick Corea to record an album, The Enchantment, released in May 2007.[7] Fleck and Corea toured together throughout 2007.
As a follow-up to the Fleck/Meyer double concerto mentioned above, the two were commissioned for a trio concerto, for which they teamed up with Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain. It debuted in Nashville in 2006 and was later recorded for a CD, The Melody of Rhythm. The trio subsequently toured together in 2009 and 2010.
In July 2007 at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, he appeared and jammed with Toumani Diabaté, a kora player from Mali. He is also scheduled to play the 2009 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival with Toumani Diabaté.
Fleck has also played with Malian ngoni (ancestor of the banjo) player Cheick Hamala Diabate.
In December 2007, he performed charity concerts in Germany to help promote AIDS awareness. His largest concert was held in Grosse Halle Bern on December 1, 2007.
On June 13, 2008, he performed as part of The Bluegrass Allstars, composed of bluegrass heavyweights Sam Bush, Luke Bulla, Edgar Meyer, Bryan Sutton, and Jerry Douglas at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
The next day Fleck performed with Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet at the same festival.
In 2009, an independent film documentary of Fleck's visit to Uganda, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Mali, was released to limited run engagements in US cities. "Throw Down Your Heart" was directed by Sascha Paladino, Fleck's half brother. It was filmed during Fleck's year off from touring with the Flecktones.
Fleck premiered his Concerto for Banjo in Nashville, Tennessee on September 22, 2011, performing with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which commissioned the work.
In August 2007 at Paladino's wedding, Fleck brought Abigail Washburn as his "girlfriend", both to play in a scratch band composed of wedding party members.[8] In May 2009, the Bluegrass Intelligencer satirized the upcoming "strategic marriage" of Washburn and Fleck, joking that the couple promise to have a "male heir" who will be the "Holy Banjo Emperor".[9] In February 2010, The Aspen Times reported that Washburn had become Fleck's wife in the previous year.[10] In a July 2010 interview, Washburn said she first met her husband in Nashville at a square dance—she was dancing and he was playing.[11]
Béla Fleck has been nominated in more categories than any other musician in Grammy history.[13]
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