Word: bela
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...after eight. The lights went off about twenty minutes ago, and for the first time, banjoist Bela Fleck approaches the microphone set up at the front of the stage. He and his Flecktones--bassist Victor Lamonte Wooten and Synth Axe Drumitarist Roy Wooten (also known as Future Man)--have just ripped through an amazing rendition of "Vix-9," the first song on the Flecktone's new album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...
Despite their different musical backgrounds (Bela was trained and played for years on the bluegrass circuit; Victor got his musical training from his eclectically talented family), Bela and Victor continually find new ways to complement each other. They weave patterns, they build harmonies, they layer melodies, they solo, they return and play together, they stop and start and pop and jump and reach and it all works. Future Man is a subtle and exciting SynthAxe player (the SynthAxe Drumitar is an instrument that Future Man invented: it looks like a guitar, is played with one's fingers, and sounds like...
...Sanders show, Phish bassist Mike Gordon sat in the front row. Gordon is not so emotive. Still, after a scorching banjo solo by Bela that bled into a ten-minute solo by Victor (who was just named Bass Player Magazine's bassist of the year) involving, in turn, a four-string bass, a five-string bass, a six-string bass, and two four-string basses played simultaneously, Gordon was standing up grinning broadly and applauding with the rest of the audience...
After the show, the band stayed around and talked with the audience for over an hour. It seemed almost surreal, after such an intense experience, to see the three of them hanging out with the crowd. Fifteen Minutes, however, was lucky enough to get Bela by himself, one-on-one, for about an hour before his soundcheck...
...Bela Fleck: Well, when this band started I tried really hard to stay away from the bluegrass thing because a lot of people didn't know what [The Flecktones] were and so they would say, "Oh it's bluegrass" and it's certainly not bluegrass. But as time has gone by I've felt a lot more comfortable integrating the bluegrass side of my music back in and so now we're doing more things that have that feel. There's a couple of hundred thousand people in the United States that know me from the bluegrass world. Then...