Bela Fleck is an American treasure. Over the course of a career spanning 40 years (winning 17 Grammy Awards along the way) he has touched on many styles but predominately focuses on bluegrass and jazz…two forms of music that are distinctly American. If I had to come up with musicians who personify culture in the United States, Bela Fleck would definitely make that short list.
He’s played with a wide variety of musicians and groups over the years (including performing duets with Chick Corea on one of his last recordings) but he is best known for his work with his group called The Flecktones.
The Flecktones first crossed my radar back in 1993. I bought an issue of Modern Drummer magazine that had Neil Peart on the cover (for obvious reasons) that also included an interview with Roy “Futureman” Wooten.
Futureman played a custom built contraption called the Drumitar instead of a traditional drum set (the interview and the wild photos of the Drumitar) made me extremely intrigued. Here is video interview with Futureman talking about the Drumitar from 2012:
Soon afterwards I bought the album Ufo Tofu which completely opened up my mind to new possibilities of what jazz fusion and bluegrass music could be.
At the time The Flecktones comprised of Bela Fleck, Roy Wooten, Roy’s brother Victor Wooten on bass and harmonica player Howard Levy. Here they are performing “The Yee-Haw Factor” from Ufo Tofo:
Ufo Tofu turned out to be the last album that Howard Levy appeared on with the Flecktones. He left soon afterwards and the band continued as a trio with 1994’s Three Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Here they are performing as a trio on The Conan O’Brien Show:
Eventually saxophone player Jeff Coffin joined the group becoming a longtime member until the group eventually disbanded in 2012. During that time, The Flecktones made somewhat regular appearances on TV with Conan O’Brien. Here is that quartet performing in 1994 on the show in 1996:
In 2003 Bela Fleck and the Flecktones fully embraced their progressive rock tendencies and decided to release a massive 3 CD set of new studio material called Little Worlds that encompassed everything from the usual jazz fusion / bluegrass to classical, world music and more. It also included a slue of guest musicians like Bobby McFerrin, Branford Marsalis, Nickel Creek and Derek Trucks. Little Worlds is today’s pick!
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The album had a nearly 3 hour run time, which spooked their label Columbia Records, so they also simultaneously released the much more digestible Ten From Little Worlds sampler which includes ten songs from the full album in a tidy 50 minutes (some of the original songs were even edited to be slightly shorter). I’m not sure if it helped with album sales, but I guess it is a nice introduction to the larger work. I prefer to listen to the originally conceived epic though.
The album opens with the Bill Monroe tribute “Bil Mon”, an 8-minute suite that really showcases what the overall album is all about.
That song is followed up my the strange “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” which includes rapping from Bobby McFerrin and Divinity Roxx. I think the band really wanted to show how adventurous they could be. I’m not sure it entirely works, but it is definitely outside-the-box:
Tons of highlights abound throughout Little Worlds. I’ll try to hit on just a few here to pique your interest.
For starters, I really like the Futureman-penned “New Math” which includes a lot of twists and turns:
I also love “Off the Top (Gravity Wheel)” which features Nickel Creek. That band was trying to shed their traditional bluegrass label at the time and this was the first shot fired before they put out the more rock oriented Why Should the Fire Die in 2005.
“Return of the Mudslingers” includes Branford Marsalis which is a nice almost smooth-jazz number:
Derek Trucks (playing some mean slide guitar) and Sam Bush (on mandolin) are featured on “Pineapple Heart”:
The album also ends with Derek Trucks along with dobro player Jerry Douglas and Bernie Williams on guitar (Yes, that is the same Bernie Williams that won 4 World Series with the New York Yankees):
The whole of Little Worlds is worth hearing but I will also include links to Ten From Little Worlds for those of you with busier schedules or shorter attention spans. I’ll also end with this way cool live footage of the band performing yet again on Conan O’Brien in 2003 shortly after the release of Little Worlds:
