It’s hard to pinpoint what genre of music encapsulates Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Jazz? Americana? Afro-Appalachian Jamgrass? No labels required. The audience at the UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA, on Tuesday night didn’t need no stinkin’ labels to appreciate the musical mastery of this beloved quartet. Whatever you call their oeuvre, it’s a brilliant groove.
Now nearing their 40th anniversary, the Flecktones are having a ball. Each musician is a master of their instrumental domain, and as a collaborative ensemble, they embody fluidity, fun, and flawlessness.
This is the Flecktones’ first tour since their 30th anniversary run in 2019. All four are original members. Banjo maestro Béla Fleck and brothers Victor Wooten (bass) and Roy “Future Man” Wooten (percussion) are joined on this sojourn by fellow Flecktone founder Howard Levy on harmonica and piano. (In December, a special “Jingle All the Way” tour will also include saxophonist Jeff Coffin, who became the fourth Flecktone for many years when Levy left the band in 1992.)
The Flecktones are far more than the sum of their fabled parts. For the record, those “parts” include bass player Wooten, the only person to have won Bass Player magazine’s “Bass Player of the Year” more than once—and he’s won it three times! Those parts also include Future Man, another accomplished Wooten brother. (Their parents begat five musical geniuses, and the four surviving brothers frequently tour together.) In the Flecktones, he’s best known as the wielder of the mighty Synthaxe drumitar, a guitar’ish-body drum machine device of his own invention. On Tuesday, he occasionally sat behind a drum set, but most of the time Future Man strolled the stage with his axe.
Levy is stunning on both harmonica and piano. (Fleck called him a “man of two brains.”) A murmur of pleasant recognition rippled through the crowd when he soloed on harmonica and launched into Bach’s chorale “Jesus bleibet meine Freude.” (You know it, if not by name, trust me.) His frequent piano solos were equally bombastic and sublime.
And what hasn’t been said about the fantastic Mr. Fleck? I’ve lost count of how many different lineups I’ve seen him in over the years. Whether it’s Newgrass Revival—the seminal band that brought him fame—appearances with his wife Abigail Washburn (she’s a flat picker; he finger picks), or world beat configurations with luminaries such as Zakir Hussein and Edgar Meyer, Fleck always delivers the goods.
(Personal notes: I first heard of Fleck because my mother had a Rounder Records artists sampler LP in the early 80s, and one or two of the tracks were his. I’ve been a fan ever since. And I’ll never forget a special appearance by him and Chris Thile at a workshop where they played improv and even jammed on a Radiohead tune. Wowzers!)
So what do you get when you stick four virtuoso multi-genre musicians on one stage for two hours? Well, for one thing, you get a lot of incredible solos. The Wootens each get several turns in the spotlight, and every song featured at least one turn by Fleck and Levy.
It’s been 14 years since their last album. Tuesday’s show featured songs from their entire catalog, but only “Sweet Pomegranates” was plucked from that last recording. On the other hand, fans from their early days were treated to several cuts from the Flecktones’ first few albums, including show opener “Frontiers” from their eponymous 1990 debut. Levy kicked it off playing Jew’s harp; the rest of the band came in with the melody. Before long Fleck was off and running on the first of many tremendous banjo solos. Fleck alternated between acoustic and electric banjo throughout the evening.
Several other songs from that debut record emerged in the two one-hour sets, including “Mars Needs Women” and “The Sinister Minister.” Likewise, their second and third albums were well represented, including UFO Tofu’s “Nemo’s Dream” and “True North.”
The second set kicked off with the Irish jig’ish “Big Country,” transporting the audience to a rural road in an ethereal landscape. Later in the set, Fleck took a solo turn sitting on a stool to play another early cut, “Sunset Road.” This segued into Fleck’s version of the Gershwin classic, “Rhapsody in Blue(grass).”
It’s fitting that Fleck would cover Gershwin; both are uniquely American blends of hard-to-define musical styles. Gershwin was a mélange of classical, opera, Tin Pan Alley, and All-That-Jazziness. Likewise, Fleck is—well, we decided on no labels, so let’s just leave it there.
At one point, the band took time to introduce each other. Wooten (Victor, that is) praised Fleck: “Who woulda thunk? A banjo?!” He added, “How many Grammys does God have? All I know is The God of the banjo has a lot of ’em.”
For an encore, the Flecktones kicked out “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo” from their 1991 album of the same name. The audience was asked to contribute “Oohs” and “Aahs,” a staple of this song’s performance for decades now. Each band member also had a stuffed cosmic hippo (on their amps, and on the grand piano). Audience members could buy one in the lobby for $15.
Long live the cosmic hippo. Long live the Flecktones.
