Feature Article - Winter 1995/96

Bella Fleck:

Banjo without Borders

By Julie Melrose

"Tales From The Acoustic Planet" is the poetic title of Bela Fleck's 1995 album, but it also describes what the globally-minded banjo player is bringing back to the U.S. from worldwide travels with his band, The Flecktones.

The Acoustic Planet World Tour has thus far taken the group to Ireland, South Africa, Indonesia, Mongolia, Thailand, China, Singapore and The Philippines, as well as across the U.S.

Overseas treks by the band have generally had a cultural purpose beyond album promotion. For example, the musicians endured 16-hour flights to and from South Africa last October to participate in a special recording project: a benefit album for a school in Soweto.

The album, tentatively titled "A Place Of Hope," will be released by Warner Brothers later this year in both South Africa and the U.S. It features the music of stellar artists of both countries, as well as the spoken contributions of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. "The trip was amazing and inspiring," said a travel-weary Bela from his Nashville home the day after returning. "Hopefully, the album will sell well enough to do some good."

Last winter's Far Eastern adventure was sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency, a State Department office which, according to Bela, "tries to let people in different countries know that America is more than they think it is" by exposing them to aspects of U.S. culture they might not otherwise encounter.

Dissatisfied with the prospect of one-sided musical sharing, The Flecktones structured their visit to the Far East as a cultural exchange in which the band would learn music from, and perform with, indigenous musicians of each country.

This model grew out of Bela's experience traveling to Africa and India with the acoustic group New Grass Revival in the 1980s. "I realized you could ask the tour organizers in advance to line up local musicians, and I loved that idea. When I got the chance to go overseas with The Flecktones, I made a real effort to have that happen."

Viewing the trips as "a major educational opportunity, " Bela brought home examples of each country's music in tablature that would be easily accessible to him later on. "Instead of just making tapes and going home and never listening to them, I made sure I learned something in eachcountry. I came back with a whole bunch of tunes transcribed."

Working with the Far Eastern musicians--most of whom knew only that The Flecktones were "a popular unusual group from the U.S."--Bela strove to set his foreign counterparts at ease with behavior that seems applicable to any respectful jam session involving unfamiliar players. "When you're first trying to play music with someone from a different country, one thing that counts for a lot is enthusiasm. If you let people know you're really excited, they'll forgive a lot. Beyond that, you really listen, try to learn, and do whatever it takes to not make it unpleasant for the other people."

In Bela's case, this meant "rather than taking half an hour to memorize the music I was being taught, I took ten minutes to quickly write it down in tablature. Then we'd start playing together and the musicians would realize, 'Oh, this guy can actually play,' instead of thinking, 'What is this hell I'm being put through by some foreign geek?'"

While The Flecktones were exposed to new instruments in the Far East, and were challenged by trying to play Eastern- scaled music on Western-scaled fretted instruments, the American and Far Eastern musicians found they shared common concerns that transcended cultural and language barriers. "Meeting lifelong practitioners of instruments, we found a lot of commonality. They've dealt with all the problems we've dealt with in terms of learning to play in time, be in tune and get good sound out of their instruments. Those things are the same everywhere."

Bela said familiarity with the 5-string banjo and bluegrass varied from country to country. In The Philippines and Thailand, where some bluegrass is played, "they all knew 'Beverly Hillbillies' and 'Dueling Banjos.' It's funny: In the U.S., I don't usually want to play those tunes that much. Over there, I was trying so hard to come up with something that would reach people that my taste in tune selection suddenly changed."

Similarly, although the U.S. banjo player's domestic performances are virtual festivals of fusion, Bela found himself wanting to offer pure examples of American musical idioms to audiences overseas. "I felt it was real important to play bluegrass for people, to play jazz for people, to play all the different idioms more clearly than we might here, where they're already familiar. We didn't try to blur the lines as much as we do at home."

Even so, Bela discovered The Flecktones' music contrasted sharply with most American recordings aired on Far Eastern radio. "The only U.S. music getting over to most of these countries is so basic: Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, Madonna. They're not getting the stuff that falls between the cracks. College professors over there told me after hearing our shows, 'We had no idea anyone was doing anything musically complex in America.' I told them, 'We're just the tip of the iceberg.'"

Audience members at Far Eastern performances included government functionaries and merchants as well as musicians, music students and other curious local residents.

In Banda Aceh, a town in Muslim Indonesia where concerts are a rarity, the whole community turned out for the show--and surprised The Flecktones with a different cultural style of response. "When the rhythmm of a song would begin or a new guy would start his solo, people would applaud. When the show was over, what was there to applaud for? We said 'thank you,' and they all just got up to leave," recalled Bela.

"In fact, the music had an incredible impact. People were going as crazy during the show as I've seen any audience go--just not at the familiar points. You can still tell that people appreciate what's happening, though, whether or not they're reacting in ways you're used to."

In typical Flecktone fashion, some of the Far Eastern folk tunes the band learned during the day showed up onstage at night in Latin or Celtic arrangements. Bela said no one took offense at these cross-cultural experiments. "People were thrilled. Many of those songs have already been done a million ways in their native countries, and people have gotten tiredof them. I was told in Korea that it was a revelation when I approached a particular traditional song like a banjo tune. People said, 'It's such a sad song, and it sounds so hopeful and joyful the way you guys play it.'"

Bela and his bandmates are very honored to represent the U.S. overseas. "It feels more meaningful sometimes than just playing a gig at home, getting applause, and 'taking the money and running.' We're all proud to be musical ambassadors."

That pride in bridging cultures extends to projects within the U.S. as well. Bela's latest album, "Tabula Rasa" (Water Lily Acoustics, WLA-CS-52-CD), is a collaboration with East Indian slide guitarist V.M. Bhatt, Chinese erhu (violin) player Jeibing Chen and other musicians. Even the title is a cross-cultural play on words, translating as "clean slate" in Latin, but referring in North Indian to flavor.

Multi-cultural collaboration is only one of the innovations that have marked The Flecktones' work since the group's formation in 1989, after New Grass Revival's break-up. Each band member had already either redefined the use of an instrument or invented a new one entirely. Victor Wooten was named Bass Player magazine's 1993 "player of the year" for liberating the bass from its traditional rhythmic supporting role. He could mesmerize listeners with elegant solo arrangements of jazz standards, or frenzy crowds with musical acrobatics as his powerful spatulate fingers slapped, tappedand danced across the strings.

Percussionist Future Man was the sole planetary master of the Synth-Axe Drumitar, a guitar-shaped electronic creation in which a rainbow of percussive and tonal sounds are accessed through brightly- colored, pressure-sensitive finger pads.

Bela himself had undergone a 20-year transformation from a bluegrass wunderkind to a mature instrumentalist and composer who demonstrated that the 5-string banjo's musical applications are limited only by the imagination.

Solo albums he recorded for Rounder during his New Grass tenure ( e.g., "Deviation," "Inroads" and the new- acoustic classic "Drive") had clearly foreshadowed the fusion style that quickly led the Flecktones to widespread popularity--and ten cumulative Grammy nominations for "Bela Fleck and The Flecktones," "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo," "UFO TOFU" and"Three Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."

The 1992 departure of fourth original Flecktone Howard Levy (who needed more family time than rigorous touring allowed) might have been disastrous, but instead became the springboard for heightened creativity. Redefining themselves as a trio, the band devised technological and personnel solutions to the gaps left by keyboard/harmonica wiz Levy's absence.

Victor further developed his talent for covering melody and rhythm simultaneously, Future Man expanded his tonal repertoire, and Bela attached a synthesizer pick- up to his purple Deering Crossfire, allowing him to channel the voices of other instruments through the electric banjo's body.

Special guests including dobroist Jerry Douglas, sax player Branford Marsalis, mandolinist Sam Bush, fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Edgar Meyer, oboist Paul McCandless, and pianists Chick Corea and Bruce Hornsby began appearing on the group's recordings and at live shows, filling out the sound and recharging The Flecktones' creative batteries.

"When we've got special guests on stage, especially when they're just learning the material and jamming their way through it, that brings great energy to the show because you're all up there improvising again," said Bela. "Nobody's getting to fall back onto their routine."

Many of the above musicians will appear on a live Flecktones album due out later this year, as they did on Tales From The Acoustic Planet (Warner Brothers).

For Acoustic Planet, Bela chose to focus on the more lyrical side of his work, and not to depend on frenetic "hot picking" to carry the album. The decision reflected his recent thoughts about the role of recordings in daily life. "An album has to fit into people's lives to be successful in the artistic sense. It can't be something you listen to once and say, 'I don't really have a place for this.' There's a lot of pretty music on Tales From The Acoustic Planet that doesn't involve going berserk on instruments. You could get up in the morning, put it on while you putter around the house and not get hyper by the time you're halfway through it."

Bela is also continuing to explore the more technical aspects of the banjo, working on an acoustic project with Gibson and expanding the technological capabilities of his Crossfire, which is equipped with custom electronics.

He said the complex sonics available to him through the synthesizer pick-up and processors are, ironically, bringing him closer to accurately reproducing the sounds of an acoustic banjo on a high-volume electric instrument.

"A banjo is a very complex instrument," observed Bela. "You've got a sharp attack, a certain amount of sustain, harmonics ringing through and notes dying. All of those things happen simultaneously, which is part of what's cool. On an electric instrument, it's harder to get the full effect--but with this new technology, the sky's the limit."

A "no limits" approach also continues to rule The Flecktones' blending of musical idioms, including jazz, folk, rock, classical, reggae, blues, funk, worldbeat and the ever-present bluegrass.

The perception that Bela left bluegrass behind as a musical interest when he began performing more jazz was, he said, largely illusory. "I never stopped loving playing bluegrass--I just played it less for a while." He continues to participate in major bluegrass festival jams, incorporate bluegrass elements into his compositions and perform traditional arrangements of tunes like "Groundspeed" and "Blackberry Blossom" in live Flecktones shows.

The relocation of his albums to music store jazz bins has more to do with the industry's insistence on placing artists in marketing categories than with any attempt by Bela to deny the strong bluegrass influence in his work.

Nevertheless, Bela is aware that the growing complexity of his music, and the fact that some of it is not easily mastered by non-advanced banjo players, may limit its mass appeal.

"Music that's not easily imitable is less likely to become a popular trend. It may take ten years to learn, whereas some other material--certain forms of rock-and-roll, basic blues and bluegrass-- may be a lot easier for people to get ahold of and interpret and call their own."

For Bela, however, popular trend-setting takes a back seat to artistic expression. "I'm not trying to write music that everyone can play. In fact, I never think of that. I try to make music that's emotionally or technically challenging, that creates feelings or explores musical ideas. In that, I'm only limited by my own emotional and technical abilities."

Bela makes clear that he doesn't equate technical complexity with emotional effectiveness. "There's as much emotion possible in a very simple Scruggs passage as in a more complex passage Pat Cloud might play. Earl Scruggs is technically brilliant, but what he does has a certainsimplicity."

He also believes the evolution of acoustic music in recent decades has altered all of our perceptions of what's simple. "When Earl's music first came out, nobody had ever heard anything so fast and amazing in 'roots music.' Now we talk about Scruggs' music as 'the simple stuff.' That sameevolution is happening with all the bluegrass instruments."

Bela is aware that some of the modern incarnations of acoustic music may not be for everyone. He thinks that's fine. "The fact that someone came into banjo music after Bill Keith and Tony Trischka and me doesn't mean they have to take the modern stuff on."

"Some people say, 'I'm not going to play that way. I prefer traditional.' There's a great attraction among young people to the Scruggs and Crowe styles. A lot of people still zoom right into that, and I think that's very healthy."

The most important thing, said Bela, is to make sure you like a new kind of music before you undertake learning it. "There's no point thinking, "Well, I'm a banjo player, and everybody tells me if I'm going to be really good, I have to learn jazz." If you don't like that music, you're wasting your time and effort, and you won't play as well."

Bela applies that same philosophy to selection of tunes for study, since he thinks the pick-and-choose approach is most condusive to the development of an individual style. "I've always believed the real key to playing well is to start with your own taste. Rather than learning every banjo player's repertoire, learn the stuff you like from each player and use it as building blocks. The goal is to sound like the playing you like, or to create new things that you'll also like. That's equally true of bluegrass or jazz."

He hopes his current music can serve as a bridge for those bluegrass banjo players who do want to start exploring jazz or learning about music from other countries. "Sometimes it's easiest to understand a new kind of music when somebody is playing it on your own instrument. If you're a banjo player and you listen to jazz banjo music, you're already used to hearing the sound of the instrument and you're used to the way the banjo is tuned."

"If you like a particular person's playing, a real good place to start is to try and find materials they've created. The only things of mine out right now are the audio and video tapes I did for Homespun, which are both outdated in the sense that they've been out for many years now. But the building blocks to what I do are in those tapes. I'm still building on those same blocks."

Bela is currently at work on two new instructional projects for Homespun: one of them a joint effort with Tony Trischka based on their "Solo Banjo Works" Rounder album, and the other related to the "Acoustic Planet" recording. "It takes a long time to finish the tabs. It's hard to prioritize going back to figure out what you did last year while you're moving ahead with whatever you're doing this year."As he moves ahead, he remains wary of the potential pitfalls of change for its own sake. "It's a conundrum, because some artists' best work is their first stuff. I might never write another 'Sunset Road' or 'Sinister Minister,'" said Bela, naming popular Flecktones tunes.

"There's a danger of getting into weaker material if you continue to change not because the music is improving, butjust because you want it to be different."

However, Bela feels there are greater pitfalls involved in creative stagnation, since The Flecktones have always used their own contagious onstage excitement to engage listeners. "If we kept doing the same set over and over, our audiences would get a very tired and uninspired version of us. I think they deserve a version of us that's awake, aware, improvising madly, and putting our hearts and souls into the moment. You can only put your heart and soul into a certain moment so many times," he added, laughing, "so we change things."

Although Bela's concern for the experience of listeners is heartfelt, ultimately, like most good relationships, the one between The Flecktones and their fans is a win-win proposition. "We take a lot of pride in doing something special on stage, and the audience response feeds us. In a way, it's selfish. When the music is working, and the show is working, and there's such joy happening out there, we feel really great. It's a circular thing." --5SQ - Julie Melrose
Back to the Home Page