Weekend: For Bela Fleck, the banjo has no bounds

For Bela Fleck, the banjo has no bounds

He's done pop, jazz, bluegrass, country and music for children, and now Fleck is adding something new to his repertoire: classical (yes, that's Beethoven et al.).

By PHILIP BOOTH

Grammy Awards and nominations don't necessarily mean much, other than that a lot of people have purchased a lot of copies of whatever it is that's being recognized.

But Bela Fleck's Grammy run also shows how the banjo wizard transcends genres. The Flecktones, his eclectic jazz fusion quartet, just picked up two nominations, for last year's Outbound and a track from that disc. And Fleck also grabbed another nomination, for his collaboration with fellow banjo player Alison Brown onLeaving Cottondale, from her Fair Weather CD.

In all, he has been honored with 14 nominations and three wins, in categories including pop, jazz, bluegrass, spoken word, children's and country.

Fans of the Flecktones, slated to open their latest tour with a show tonight at Ruth Eckerd Hall, might be surprised at Fleck's range.

Two years ago, he recorded The Bluegrass Sessions and went on the road with mandolinist Sam Bush, dobro player Jerry Douglas, fiddler Stuart Duncan, guitarist Tony Rice and others.

And he recently signed an unusual deal with Sony. The label committed to three discs on Columbia (including Outbound and a forthcoming straight-ahead jazz project) and two discs on Sony Classical.

The classical project, due this fall, is the first-ever recording of its kind by a banjo player. It will feature works by Beethoven, Chopin, Paganini and Tchaikovsky.

"It's a huge job, trying to make existing classical music fit the banjo," Fleck said from his home in Nashville. "It's kind of like starting out with a handicap. The process of learning it, doing it in the right keys, coming up with the right fingering and actually doing it is daunting."

Meanwhile, there's touring to be done to back Outbound, a disc whose guests include singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin, Jon Anderson of Yes, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, steel pans player Andy Narell, tuvan throat singer Ondar, table master Sandip Burman and keyboardist John Medeski.

The results may be a tad overbusy, but there's never a dull moment, from the manic Americana of the flickering Hoe Down to the old-timey jazz feel of That Old Thing.

Along the way, pop, pan-Asian, African, Irish and Eastern European influences are woven in.

Despite the disc's unconventionality, some listeners said the band "sold out" by including Colvin and Anderson. "If you hear something that sounds kind of commercial popping out, then it's because we like that too," Fleck countered.

"By the same token, we wouldn't have any objection to airplay. This is stuff that I like to do. It's pretty esoteric stuff. Maybe it's never going to be pop mainstream. But I have seen those kinds of shifts in the music industry."

One shift in favor of Fleck is his increasing identification with the jam band set. Last year, Fleck, electric bass master Victor Wooten, drumitar player Roy "Future Man" Wooten and saxophonist Jeff Coffin shared a bill with the String Cheese Incident at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans. The two bands crowded together on the stage for a riveting run-through of Joe Zawinul's Birdland.

The Flecktones subsequently played the jammy Berkfest in Massachusetts, with a little help from DJ Logic (a Medeski Martin and Wood collaborator), and they opened for the Dave Matthews Band at seven shows in Texas, Missouri and Kansas.

In some respects, it's a surprising development: The Flecktones specialize in marvelously complex, insidiously catchy pieces featuring intricate lines and odd meters that occasionally hark back to fusion acts such as Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Jam bands, on the other hand, often are given to extended bouts of esoteric noodling.

To be sure, Fleck stretches out, but his approach is more tightly arranged: introduce the multidimensioned melody, open up for some improvisations and then return to the head with a vengeance.

Still, the connections have been made, and the Flecktones' fan base continues to grow.

"I've recorded with Phish, and the band has played with Phish," Fleck said. "I've done a lot with Dave Matthews, and the Flecktones have played with them. We've had a lot of fallout from those connections.

"We've had some of the biggest bands in that idiom give us their seal of approval."

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PREVIEW: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, 8 tonight, Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater. Tickets are $29.75.