Bela Fleck and the Flecktones with the Oregon Symphony - Review

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones! Monday, February 25, 2008 at: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland, Oregon

My good friend Eric and I were pretty excited to see what Mr. Fleck and the Flecktones, playing together with a full-sized orchestra, would come up with for our musical enjoyment. I am generally unfamiliar with Bela’s music after around the late 90’s or so — I haven’t stopped listening or hearing music from his various projects on public radio, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of it in my personal collection (various iTunes crashes through the years, etc — you know how it goes). Anyway, having recently moved to the Pacific Northwest, I suddenly have a new appreciation for all things “roots”, “Americana”, or “alt” – and whether you are using a prefix or a suffix before the terms “jazz”, “bluegrass”, or “fusion”, Bela certainly fits the bill. Obviously the opportunity to see this virtuoso banjoist and resident of Nashville, along with the Flecktones, plus the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, couldn’t be missed.

First the (slightly) bad news: As far as the orchestration went, there really wasn’t much of it. Curiously, a clear plastic barrier (about 3 or more feet in height) stood between the band and the members of the orchestra, including the conductor. Symbolically, we all knew we were seeing two different musical groups, separated perhaps by their agendas. The Oregon Symphony certainly wanted to showcase this artist to the community as well as welcome enthusiasts of popular music. Bela and the Flecktones wanted to reach that audience, playing their own music. The result, for the first part of the concert, seemed to be the band playing their tunes and the orchestra trying to find a place to fit in thirty or so extra voices behind a modern jazz/folk quartet. Not really a simple manner of placing orchestral ‘chords’ at gaps between solos (there weren’t many), so at times it felt a little rushed or out of place.

That being said, I really enjoyed the Flecktones’ performance. As you would expect, improvisation was the theme, with all four members sounding very loose and comfortable playing together. One could not only hear, but see, the musical chemistry between Bela and Victor Wooten, the virtuoso bassist (and fine composer in his own right), as they played a cross-section of fusion tunes from the band’s early years, some modern pieces (including a vocal performance by the drummer / percussionist Future Man), as well as some crowd-pleasing bluegrass numbers. The two seemed to really play off of each other’s melodic and rhythmic ideas, sharing in the joy of collective experimentation. It was delightful to see their particular styles at work, with Victor not only ‘holding down’ the low-end side of the music but also taking some flights of piano-style bass plucking himself (à la Stanley Jordan). A few of his more inspired efforts left the crowd wanting more, but they’ll have to wait for his solo show in town this spring. I’ll be there.

On this occasion, the concert-goers in attendance were as varied as the musical styles on display. There many fans of Mr. Wooten present, judging by the shouts of “Play it Victor!” as well as a good number of bluegrass enthusiasts who tended to perk up (and yee-haw) whenever Bela would begin a recognizable passage from Tales from the Acoustic Planet. They would have to wait until the encore, however – after a few minutes of applause, Bela came back onto the stage alone, banjo in hand, and gave us an extended fugue-like improv. If for some reason you hadn’t been listening to Bela amongst the sounds of all the other players on stage, now was your chance to hear why conductor Gregory Vajda described him as “simply one of the best musicians on the planet” in his earlier introduction.

Showing the full range of his musical influences and blending the baroque and bluegrass with expert phrasing and finger-style, he seemed to be making it all up as he went along, and we loved it. He was fearless, daring to play just what he wanted to play, discovering new notes and rhythms and adding them to his own special concoction of melodic flavoring. It seemed to suddenly dawn on everyone at that moment, that this, is what we had come to hear.

And we cheered.

Links:

Bela Fleck
The Flecktones
The Oregon Symphony