Three months of anticipation – a lifetime of musical memories
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones – The Christmas Concert
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Egg
Albany, NY
It’s a windy night in Albany. Bela, Victor, Jeff, and Futureman traveled from Hawaii to play here, so thankfully it isn’t freezing. Winter will hold off for another few days. I walk to The Egg from my State Street apartment and enter from The Plaza. The docent at the door asks if I have a ticket. I tell her that I purchased my ticket on September 5, and have been “ripe with anticipation” ever since. She says, “Good thing. The show is sold out.” That doesn’t surprise me, even for a Tuesday night show. The musical creds of the performers are well known. The Flecktones have been headliners for years. They have an impressive array of awards as a group and individually. They are among the most respected—what do you call them, jazz, new age, eclectic, bluegrass—musicians in the world. Victor Wooten mentions on stage that Bela (he pronounces it Bay-lah) has been nominated for more Grammys this year than any other artist in history. He adds, “They’re still trying to figure him out.”
Now, here I am sitting in the lounge of the Hart Theater with a few hundred other smiling Flecktones Freaks waiting for the volunteer ushers to let us in. The wine ($6.50 a pour), beer, and soda are in pretty good supply but I’m staying sober and sugar free. The people I see range in age from pre-teen to 70-something, from clean-shaven to bearded, and clear-skinned to tattooed.
The security ropes are removed, the crowd files in, and soon there is a huge buzz in the Hart Theater. The recorded music being fed through the on-stage speakers is so good that I don’t pay attention to the time until a woman seated behind me says to her friend, “7:30 is 7:30. When do they plan to start the show?” Almost half the seats are empty at 7:33. Are people having trouble finding parking spots? Even though I walked to the venue, I can sympathize with them. I drove in to Albany a few times and tried to park in the vicinity – no easy task.
Smoke, probably humid air, starts to fill the theater, a good indication that an appearance by the performers is imminent. I look up again and almost every seat is filled. I ask the people next to me if they’ve seen Bela Fleck and the Flecktones before. Five times, says the husband, and three times for Victor Wooten with his own entourage. Someone online at flecktones.com wrote that they had been to thirteen performances. This is my first, but not my last time.
Their entrance is greeted with rousing applause and hoots and hollers. Futureman is dressed like a pirate, complete with tri-corner hat. Victor has an ear-to-ear grin that seldom leaves his face while he’s on stage. Bela and Jeff are business casual, but their artistry is nothing but Armani tuxedo. The opening song has a jam feeling to it. Victor plays the first notes, a funky jazz riff. Everyone gets a solo and at the end of the song you know you’re in for a spectacular evening. These guys play their hearts out. I turn to the person next to me and say, “I could leave happy right now.” “But I wouldn’t want to miss a minute.
The second tune is from their Christmas album. Jeff plays flute and starts with strains of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Bela adds refrains from It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Favorite Things. Christmas music never sounded so good, and I love Christmas Caroles.
Introductions are next and the camaraderie is evident. Then the tune Puffy is Free. How do you describe this music? It is jazz one minute, bluegrass the next, rhythm and blues, rock, classical, and so on through the genres. It is such a joy to listen to the imaginations of these artistes as they play out their dreams and fantasies on their instruments. If musical notes were water, I would be drenched. The music flows off the stage, sometimes in ripples, sometimes in waves, and sometimes in tsunamis.
Jeff takes a break and the trio plays The Christmas Song and, one of my all time favorites, Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Suite.
Victor Lemonte Wooten has won Nashville Music Awards Bassist of the Year award and is the only three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Bass Player of the Year award. He is alone on stage now with his five-string bass and knocks us out with his version of Away in a Manger with strains of The Christmas Song mixed in. He sounds like an entire orchestra at times as both hands are picking and fretting together. It’s a performance worthy of a standing ovation and he gets one.
When the other musicians return to the stage, they are joined by Andy Statman. He plays clarinet on the first tune, a Hanukah waltz that Bela says Andy taught to the group. Andy stands about 5 foot 5 ( if that), is slightly built, has a full beard, and wears a yarmuka. His presence on stage is huge, however, because he plays with such joy and abandonment. To hear the sounds that he gets from the instruments he plays is an experience I will never forget. On many of the other songs, Andy plays a mandolin. “Plays” is not a strong enough word. How do I describe how he gets every possible sound from the instrument, every note, every nuance.
Leading up to intermission, the band does an upbeat dirge, if there is such a thing, on Silent Night, and a klezmer-bluegrass Winter Wonderland with Andy on mandolin and Jeff on soprano saxophone, one of the three horns he plays expertly.
Futureman and his drumitar start the second half of the show with a percussion solo. He plays the drumitar with his left hand and a trap set with his right hand and foot. With his pirate hat and strut he reminds me of Captain Jack Sparrow and the question, ” Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?” He is better on the trap set with one hand and foot than many drummers I’ve seen using all four appendages.
Next comes Jeff playing a flute solo with Bela chording on banjo in a train-like roll on The Flecktones version of Jingle Bells from their Christmas Album aptly entitled Jingle All The Way. Bela mentions the album during one of the brief but enjoyable addresses to the audience—”The album is number one on the (?) chart– and we tried so hard to be un-commercial.”
Jazz takes over again as The Flecktones and Andy jam on Sex in a Pan, “Named after an incredible dessert we had in North Carolina,” Bela tells us. He and Andy trade licks on mandolin and banjo, again deluging the audience with waves of music. Jeff is on tenor sax for this song and is getting sounds from the horn reminiscent of John Coltrane, sometimes sounding, with one sax, like an entire horn section.
After a more structured song (I forgot the title) with Bela on five-string electric banjo, an instrument that sounds as smooth as a baby’s behind, the band announces that they will play The Twelve Days of Christmas with 12 different time signatures and 12 different keys. They pull it off to perfection. I bet this song will be played at Christmas parties around the world from now on instead of the old standard one key, one time signature version. What a Christmas treat!
The evening ends with my friend Bela Fleck sitting in my living room playing a mix of Christmas, jazz, and bluegrass tunes woven together as only he can. That’s the ambience he creates. Again, a standing ovation for an impeccable performance. It was rousing enough to get an encore of the entire group and Andy doing a sweet but swinging version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, followed by another standing ovation.
The four band members came out a few minutes later and sat on the front edge of the stage to chat and sign autographs. They seem very happy to be with us and very approachable. The entire evening was filled with joy and camaraderie, the band members obviously having a great time playing songs together and sharing that with us. There were laugh-out -loud moments like when Bela and Andy were trading licks and plunked a few notes while appearing to pluck a hair or two out of Andy’s beard or Bela’s full head of hair.
Like I said before, this was my first time experiencing the sound of Bela Fleck and The Flecktones live, but it will definitely not be the last. I’m already looking forward to their next visit to The Egg or another theater nearby.
