Jazz band plans to pare it down for upcoming studio release
By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out

Jazz and bluegrass banjo wunderkind Bela Fleck thinks it’s about time to shut down the party.

Over the years and across studio albums such as 1998’s “Left of Cool” and 2003’s rambling three-CD set “Little Worlds,” Fleck and his jazz/bluegrass outfit The Flecktones have shared microphones with an impressive list of guest musicians — Dave Matthews and Shawn Colvin, The Chieftains and Nickel Creek — to populate his band’s eclectic creations.

But the next album, the bandleader says, will be a more intimate gathering: just Fleck, electric bass player Victor Wooten, electric percussionist Roy “Futureman” Wooten and saxman Jeff Coffin.

“I think it’s time to pull down to what we are as a quartet and focus on that,” Fleck says.
But don’t expect a new Flecktones platter anytime soon. Fleck, 46, says he and the rest of the guys are taking a long break in 2005.

Fleckheads wanting their fix of new tunes from the band will have to hear them in concert, such as Thursday’s headlining gig at Celebrity Theatre. This 2004 tour has been fertile ground for writing and testing out material.

“That’s our private goal to the tour,” Fleck says. “To learn all the new songs and try out new ideas. The public goal is to have a show with lots of energy and a lot of amazing playing.”

Fleck isn’t just tooting his own horn — or plucking his own banjo strings — when he boasts of the musicianship of his group. Bassist Victor Wooten is considered one of the best bassists this side of Jaco Pastorius (whose licks sometimes playfully seep into Wooten’s solos), and the quartet’s deft ability at improvising across funky, complex chordal and rhythmic terrains has pegged the group as one of contemporary jazz’s most adventurous.

Several stints opening for the Dave Matthews Band have netted the Flecktones a healthy following among jam band fans, especially those looking for something a little weirder, a little spacier, even musically flashier than the late Phish.

But Fleck says he’s glad he has never pandered to that crowd.

“I think there’s strength in the fact that we’re not tied to that ship,” Fleck says, adding that the arena gigs with the DMB were “almost too big and unruly.”

He’s just as pleased his group has never tried too hard to court the mainstream.

A hit almost erupted from 1998’s “Left of Cool,” a track titled “Communication” that featured vocals by Futureman and Dave Matthews. A few alternative radio stations picked up the tune and gave it a smattering of spins.

But radio has largely been silent for The Flecktones. Even contemporary jazz formats don't know how to slot them: smooth, they ain't.

“I’ve always felt like I don’t want to shape anything for radio, because it's never really worked out for us,” Fleck says. “I’ve seen people have huge radio success and not draw anybody, or not keep people after the hit has died out. I’d rather build an audience in an honest way.”

Of course, newcomers to the Fleckhead fold will perhaps be wooed more by the group’s gimmickier side: Fleck’s electric banjos and Futureman’s guitar-shaped drum synthesizer, Victor’s penchant for spinning his bass, Coffin’s slick move playing two saxes at the same time — things Fleck says are “little tricks we’ll do to try to win over a crowd,” though “sometimes I’d rather be like, ‘Let’s just play.’ ”

Longtime fans and newbies, jazzhounds and bluegrass buffs, are all invited to a concert that promises to be a different kind of get-together — watching as four guys use instruments to push the boundaries of music, splashing around in the genre pool and turning technical flash into something a little more playful.

“I want people to feel lifted up, but I don’t want it to be a dance party,” Fleck says. “I want brains to be stimulated. I want my brain to be stimulated.”