Béla Fleck - THE MATRIX

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Béla Fleck

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Who I Am & Where I Live:

Name: Béla Fleck
City: Nashville, Tennessee
Country: United States

My Life

Biographical: Béla was born on July 10,1958 and raised in New York City. While watching The Beverly Hillbillies as a young boy, the bluegrass sounds of Flatt & Scruggs flowed out of the TV set and into his young brain. Earl Scruggs’s banjo style hooked Béla’s interest immediately. “It was like sparks going off in my head,” he later said.

The banjo didn’t become a full time passion until ’73, when his grandfather coincidentally bought him one. That week, Béla entered New York City’s, High School of Music and Art. He began studies on the French horn but was soon demoted to the chorus, due to his lack of musical aptitude. Since the banjo wasn’t an offered elective at Music and Art, Béla sought lessons through outside sources: Erik Darling, Marc Horowitz, and Tony Trischka stepped up and filled the job.

During this period, Béla played in his first bands: Brownstone Holler and Wicker’s Creek. Living in NYC, Béla was exposed to a wide variety of musical experiences. One of the most impressive was a concert by Return to Forever, featuring Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. This concert encouraged further experimenting with rock and jazz on the banjo, signs of things to come.In 1976, he started his professional career, playing with Boston-based Tasty Licks.

In 1979, he moved to the bluegrass heartland, Lexington, KY, where he co-founded Spectrum with Jimmy Gaudreau, Glen Lawson, and Mark Schatz.

In 1981, Béla was invited to join the progressive bluegrass band New Grass Revival, lead by Sam Bush on mandolin, fiddle and vocals. With the addition of Pat Flynn on guitar and NGR veteran John Cowan on bass and vocals, New Grass Revival took bluegrass music to new heights, exciting audiences and critics alike. Through the course of five albums, they charted new territory with their blend of bluegrass, rock and country music. The relentless national and international touring by NGR exposed Béla’s banjo playing to the bluegrass/acoustic music world.

During the eight and a half years Béla spent with NGR, he continued to record a series of solo albums for Rounder, including the ground breaking 1988 album Drive. He also collaborated with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer and Mark O’Connor in an acoustic super-group called Strength in Numbers. Their MCA release, The Telluride Session is considered an evolutionary statement by the acoustic music community.

Now living in Nashville, TN, he found himself invited to record on albums by Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Randy Travis, The Oak Ridge Boys, The Gatlin Brothers, and many others.

In 1988, for the PBS Lonesome Pine Series, Béla put several musical sounds together with his banjo, a string quartet, his Macintosh computer and an experimental, jazz-based combo. Howard Levy and Victor Lemonte Wooten signed on for the concert, but the group still lacked a drummer. The search was on for an unusual drummer/percussionist. Victor suggested his brother Roy Wooten, later to become known as FutureMan. Roy was developing the “Drumitar” (drum / guitar), then in its infancy. A MIDI trigger device, the Drumitar allowed FutureMan to play the drums with his fingers triggering various sampled sounds. The first rehearsal was hampered by a strong thunderstorm that knocked the electricity out for hours. The four continued on with an acoustic rehearsal and the last slot on the TV show became the first performance of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

Next came the self-titled CD, which Béla financed himself. The recordingattracted the attention of the folks at Warner Bros. Records. Dubbed a “blu-bop” mix of jazz and bluegrass, the Grammy-nominated album became a commercial and critical success.

The Flecktones’ second recording Flight of the Cosmic Hippo followed suit and hit #1 on the Billboard Jazz Chart.

Howard Levy toured and recorded with the Flecktones till the end of 1992. After several years as a trio and touring with special guests, saxophonist Jeff Coffin joined the ‘Tones. Famed for a non-stop touring schedule, from 2001 onward, the Flecktones performed for more than 500,000 people per year.

(In 1996, Béla revisited the forward-leaning bluegrass sound of Drive, to record Bluegrass Sessions. He added Earl Scruggs, Vassar Clements and John Hartford to the original Drive lineup of Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Mark Schatz).

Still releasing albums and touring, the Flecktones have garnered a strong and faithful following among jazz and new acoustic fans. They have shared the stage with the Dave Mathews Band, Sting, Bonnie Raitt and the Grateful Dead, among many others, made several appearances on The Tonight Show, both the Johnny Carson and the Jay Leno days, as well as Arsenio Hall, and Conan O’Brian. Béla also appeared on Saturday Night Live and The Late Show with David Letterman. The Flecktones went on tour with Dave Matthews Band in 1996 and 1997, and Fleck is featured on several tracks on DMB’s 1998 album Before These Crowded Streets.

In 2003, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones simultaneously released the landmark three-disc Little Worlds with a highlights disc entitled Ten From LittleWorlds.

In 2006 the band released The Hidden Land, which won the Grammy for BestContemporary Jazz Album in 2007. In 2008, the band’s holiday album Jingle All The Way was released, and took home the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album in 2009.

Béla went to Africa in 2006 to film and record Throw Down Your Heart, a sprawling project that included an award-winning documentary and two Grammy winning albums, Throw Down Your Heart, Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 3 (2010), and Throw Down Your Heart – The Africa Sessions, Vol. 2 (2011). Both earned Grammys for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

The journey explored the African roots of the banjo and featured collaborations with incredible African musicians. It led to extensive tours in North America and Europe with Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate and N’Goni Ba, among many others.

Any world-class musician born with the names Béla (for Bartok), Anton (for Weburn) and Léos (for Janacek) would seem destined to play classical music.

Already a powerfully creative force in bluegrass, jazz, pop, rock and world music, Béla made the classical connection with Perpetual Motion, his critically acclaimed 2001 Sony Classical recording that went on to win a pair of Grammys, including Best Classical Crossover Album, in the 44th annual Grammy Awards.

Collaborating and co-producing Perpetual Motion was his longtime friend andcolleague, Edgar Meyer, an acclaimed composer and bassist whose virtuosity defies labels. Béla and Edgar co-wrote and performed a double concerto for banjo and bass, which they debuted with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in 2003. They also co-wrote The Melody of Rhythm with world renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, a triple concerto for banjo, bass and tabla. They recorded it with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and played trio and concerto shows around the world.

2008 found Bela recording The Enchantment, a duet record with his hero, Chick Corea. This album won a Latin Grammy and has led to a fruitful ongoing duo tour, and recently a double live album, Two (2015).

In 2011, through a commission with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Béla wrote and premiered his first stand-alone banjo concerto, The Impostor, accompanied by the documentary film, How to Write a Banjo Concerto. This work, along with his new quintet for banjo and string quartet, Night Flight Over Water, was released on the prestigious Deutche Gramophone label. Dedicated to Earl Scruggs, who attended the Nashville premiere, Fleck has performed the concerto worldwide over 40 times. In 2016, Fleck premiered The Juno Concerto with the Canton Symphony Orchestra, with a third banjo concerto planned for 2018.

In 2013, he joined forces with his wife, clawhammer banjoist and singer Abigail Washburn for a very banjo-centric recording and touring project. The impetus was the birth of their son Juno. Along with the obvious musical chemistry, this family band would keep their family together – on tour. Their debut album Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn took home the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk album.

In recent years he’s found himself bouncing between various intriguing touring situations, such as duos with Chick Corea, Chris Thile and Abigail Washburn, in a trio with Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer, performing his concertos with symphonies, concerts with the Brooklyn Rider string quartet, performances with African artists such as Oumou Sangare and Toumani Diabate, in jazz collaboration with The Marcus Roberts Trio, rare solo concerts and doing bluegrass with his old friends. And after nearly 30 years, the Flecktones are still performing together.

The recipient of multiple Grammy Awards and nominations going back to 1998, Béla Flecks’ total Grammy count is 15 Grammys won, with 30 nominations. He has been nominated in more categories than any instrumentalist in Grammy history.

My Media

Website: http://www.belafleck.com
Instagram: belafleckbanjo

Listen on Spotify

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/58VJzBF0hLb6ylVHdn1XB0
Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/4rH9VV4BP2CU8otrd3uXQQ
Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/5AjD7hY9hMWVC5ZWGerBv4
Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/3iIBAbZkNYkvyEXdRe6pIZ
Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/0KclPgeyUzBKU4pic1to9z
Spotify 6: https://open.spotify.com/album/34rQGJXHlECil6fZUIHm7q

Contact Information

Management/Booking: Artist Management
David Bendett, Artists, Inc.
(310) 278-5657
artistsinc@aol.com

Booking
Béla Fleck, Béla Fleck & The Flecktones, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, Béla Fleck & Marcus Roberts Trio
Jamie Ziefert
Ted Kurland Agency
(617) 254-0007
jamie@thekurlandagency.com

Classical
Rob Berretta
Opus 3 Artists
(212) 584-7513
rberretta@opus3artists.com

Samantha Cortez
(212) 584-7571
scortez@opus3artists.com

Edgar Meyer, Béla Fleck, and Zakir Hussain
Dean Schultz
IMG Artists
(212) 994-3500
(212) 994-3550 fax
Press

Carla Parisi
Kid Logic Media
(973) 563-8204
kidlogicmedia@gmail.com
Production

Richard Battaglia
(615) 9693877
chardstuff@aol.com

Clips

NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
By Béla Fleck

40 views

You are in a matrix navigable from artist to artist to artist...following artists' recommendations as guideposts. This matrix is based in the concept behind small world ("six degrees of separation") networks...meaning that all within are somehow findable/reachable from all others in a limited number of steps. And THIS means that we can all now see beyond the smoke, mirrors and hype to the REAL world of mankind's music & the arts. Prepare to swallow the red pill!

THE MATRIX IS MUSICIAN / ARTIST-IN-GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE MOST POWERFUL, SOPHISTICATED & SUBTLE SOFTWARE YET DEVISED:

⇒ the collective human mind

IT'S BASED IN BAHIA, GROUND ZERO FOR BRAZIL'S SUN-CARONA VIBRANT AFRO-BRAZILIAN CULTURE

⇒ ...rooted in a region called the Recôncavo, analogous in Brazil to the Mississippi Delta in the United States.

THE MATRIX REACHES FROM BRAZIL TO CUBA TO BROOKLYN TO BERLIN TO TOKYO TO TIMBUKTU

⇒ To wherever people want to take it...

IT IS THE NEXT-STEP EVOLUTION OF A SPECIALTY RECORD SHOP

⇒ ...opened in Salvador to showcase magisterial musicians almost completely unknown to the world...many of them living in poverty or close to it and unable to avail themselves of traditional (and costly) means of publicizing.

PRE-BRAZIL — IN NEW YORK CITY — WE "RESCUED" UNPAID ROYALTIES FOR PERFORMERS & COMPOSERS INCLUDING:

⇒ Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Philip Glass, Mongo Santamaria, Airto Moreira, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Jim Hall, Taj Mahal, Robb Royer of Bread, Speedo & the Cadillacs, and many more! With Speedo's (Earl Carroll) amazing story (kid singing on the streetcorners of Harlem to doo-wop fame to working as a beloved school janitor) I learned — as Quincy Jones figured out decades before me — that greatness and fame are completely independent. I'd see that the wave had been repeated here in Brazil with a man by the name of Raimundo Sodré, who'd gone from zero to national fame and back to zero.

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE ABOVE I BUILT A (THE WORLD'S FIRST EVER!) SMALL WORLD CURATION NETWORK...

⇒ A wave of a cyberwand opening pathways allowing ANY ARTIST — FAMOUS OR NOT — in ANY FIELD — in ANY PLACE in the world — to potentially be reached by ANYBODY from ANYWHERE.

BY WHAT WIZARDRY?

⇒ We've all heard of six degrees of separation, more properly called a small world network. Within six or so steps we can move through a chain of people knowing other people to just about anybody on the planet.

SIMPLY CHANGE "KNOW" TO "RECOMMEND"

⇒ In exactly the same way, step by step we can move through chains of ARTISTS CURATING ARTISTS to to just about any artist on the planet.

LIKE THIS...

⇒ From Quincy Jones we access one of his protégés, stellar young Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez. From Alfredo Rodriguez we access a fabulous multinstrumentalist Alfredo plays with, Munir Hossn. Two more steps and we've reached the above-mentioned Raimundo Sodré, formerly virtually unreachable in Bahia...

Raimundo Sodré Now

Dengo

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DICTATED SILENCE

⇒ Sodré's meteoric major-label career was crushed by the Brazilian dictatorship years ago and he was forced to flee Brazil under threat of death...into a 19 year exile. He became almost impossible to find and hear, even after returning to Brazil.

MUSIC FALLS LIKE RAIN

⇒ But now lines of everbranching interlinked recommendations rise from Bahia to form a (small world) network rounding the planet like the arboreal canopy of a vast Amazonian rainforest. When the dictatorship ground Sodré into the dust, they unwittingly planted a seed.

FROM SODRÉ, A WORLDLINE TO SPLENDID BULE BULE (LEATHER HAT) ABOVE... AND TO OTHERS IN THE CLIP...

⇒ "The time has arrived for these people of color to show their worth ... I want to see Uncle Sam play tambourine so the whole world can samba!"

AND FROM BULE ON...

⇒ ...tendrils twining through urban centers and beautiful backwaters... through New York boroughs, Burkina Faso... County Clare... Cape Town...

THROUGH ARTISTS ACROSS THE BOARD

⇒ ...writers, journalists, photographers, painters, illustrators, architects, choreographers, filmmakers...

IS THE MATRIX AN ALTERNATE REALITY?

⇒ Only if your reality has been defined by corporate mass media. The original meaning of "matrix" is "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!

DOES THE MATRIX WATCH YOU?

⇒ Zero surreptitious tracking, data mining and data brokerage per Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, et al.