By the book, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones are a jazz fusion band known, per Wikipedia, for an eclectic style and instrumentation that combines jazz improvisation with progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions. It is not a common descriptor, and if you mention to someone that you like Béla Fleck, you might get a blank stare, or you might receive the equivalent of a wink and a nod, an insiders look reserved for people who really enjoy music.
That music is both grand and complex, and their virtuosity is best appreciated, if possible, up close, close enough to see Béla’s finger picks as he works his banjo, or Victor Wooten bending the strings on his bass. Close enough to watch his brother, Roy “Future Man” Wooten playing his own invention, a SynthAxe guitar synthesizer configured to play drum sounds, giving the percussionist the opportunity to step away from his kit. The current tour also reunites the band with former member and saxophonist Jeff Coffin, now well over a decade into his tenure with the Dave Matthews Band.
After spending much of the year performing Flecktones material, their Atlanta appearance came just one night before the conclusion of their twenty-one stop, “Jingle All the Way” tour, featuring a variety of holiday songs from their Grammy-winning 2008 album by the same title. Joining them was Alash, the Tuvan throat singing trio whose striking blend of vocals and traditional instruments also appeared on that album. Alash performed four songs with the Flecktones and three on their own, earning enthusiastic applause from the Atlanta crowd.
There were plenty of highlights, beginning with the intricate opener “Next.” Though not a holiday song, it immediately set a high bar for the evening. Other standouts included Victor Wooten’s solo bass take on a “Carol of the Bells” medley with looping effects, Fleck’s solo performances including a playful moment where he cupped his ear to invite the audience to fill in a blank from John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and an ambitious version of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
The recorded version of “12 Days” likely confuses those missed music classes, but Fleck offered a breakdown. Each of the twelve nights requires both a different key and a different time signature. To raise the difficulty even further, the starting key shifts each night as well. The result is enormously complicated and completely satisfying visual and audible spectacle to behold, worthy of the season.
This was a tremendously rewarding show. If you have read this far to decide whether you should see the Flecktones on tour, the answer is an absolute yes! They return to the U.S. in mid-Februrary.
For those interested in this show, it was recorded and posted on the Internet Archive.
Set 1:
Set 2:
Encore:
