Thursday 12 June 2008

I had a YouTube moment - Bela Fleck

"Prelude from Bach Violin Partitia #3" by Bela Fleck

On banjo

6 comments:

Kai Roberts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kai Roberts said...

Aargh, why isn't there just an edit post facility!

Anyway, Bela Fleck has mad skills. The way he can keep two entirely separate lines going simultaneously is truly wondrous.

I also think that Victor Wooten, bassist with the Flecktones is possibly the finest practitioner of that instrument.

Some good bluegrass/world/classical fusion here as well. Fleck's mostly in the background for this, but it's remarkable nonetheless.

Andy Holroyd said...

Thanks for the links Kai. I haven’t given the Flecktones the attention they deserve. I have heard bassist Edgar Meyer with Bela before though. The two of them appear on the 2002 Bonnaroo Festival DVD. (All that DVD is worth a look)

Kai Roberts said...

Yeah, I'm very familiar with the Bonnaroo 2002 DVD. Shame the following years never quite lived up to it. After buying it, a friend and I were desperately trying to see if we could scrape the money together to go. Sadly, these days it's become a bit of a standard mainstream festival, rather than the jam festival it was. The Telluride Bluegrass Festival DVD is also a good document. Bela Fleck is all over that.

Andy Holroyd said...

"Telluride Bluegrass Festival: Thirty Years" queued up at Lovefilm.

I too was very disappointed with the follow ups to the 2002 Bonnaroo.

Kai Roberts said...

Oddly, Bonnaroo 2004 had an exceptional lineup, arguably even better than 2002, but many of the most interesting artists seem to have been omitted from the DVD. I suppose with them mostly being jambands, it must be quite difficult selecting material for inclusion due to length and segues. You can even see that a little on the 2002 DVD, I think, in the choice of particular songs. For instance, String Cheese Incident gave more intense performances than 'Search' that day, but it was probably the most distilled example.