Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Formation

Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pines Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. Howard Levy he had met the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member.

After the memorable PBS TV performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Béla Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a capella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested.

Recording

Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt.

UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children.

The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Sans Levy, the Flecktones, as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year.

In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister".

Return to quartet

In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008.

1997 saw more collaborations with big-name jam bands. In June, the Flecktones opened for The Dave Matthews Band, which drew rave reviews. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish.

In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. Left of Cool represents a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments."

In July 2000, the Flecktones released their eighth album, Outbound. Outbound is another studio album, and again the Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include: Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. The album earned the Flecktones the Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album that year.

Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's ninth album, and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert.

Little Worlds, the band's tenth album was released on August 12, 2003. Like previous Flecktones' albums, Little Worlds features a slew of musical guests, from Sam Bush on mandolin, Derek Trucks on guitar and even former New York Yankee and guitarist Bernie Williams works his way into a track. Little Worlds was released as a 3-CD album, but for the less committed listener, the band also released Ten From Little Worlds, which includes ten songs off of the original 3-CD Little Worlds.

In February 2006, the band released their eleventh album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. After spending much of the year apart, the Flecktones came together in 2008 to release a holiday album, Jingle All the Way.

Reunion

Jingle All the Way would turn out to be the Flecktones' last album with saxophone player Jeff Coffin. After the death of Dave Matthews Band saxophone player LeRoi Moore, Coffin went on to become the sax player for Matthews. To replace Coffin, the band decided to bring Howard Levy back into the fold. Levy returned to the Flecktones in the summer of 2011 for a brief tour and to record a new album, Rocket Science.

In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band.

In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016.

Critical reception

The Flecktones were described by critic Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com as performing an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop".

Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America". Himes also praised Harmonica-player Howard Levy as the star of the album.

The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing".

Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded for their use of their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of the Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown the next."

Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon."

Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already."

Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album.

Jingle All the Way was well-received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise.

Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones."

Awards and honors

Videography

Band members

Former