Lindsey Rhoades for THE VILLAGE VOICE –
No player in the history of the banjo has done more to free the instrument from the confines of bluegrass than New York native Béla Fleck. His innovative playing has melded the banjo with pop, classical, and folk; he’s collaborated with Dave Matthews Band, Phish, and fusion legend Chick Corea, among others. His solo work and long-running progressive bluegrass project the Flecktones have earned him Grammy nominations in more categories than any other instrumentalist. Now he’s brought his wide-ranging practice to Symphony Space for a series of live banjo performances that culminate in a roundtable with four other players on October 23. All of them came to the instrument in roundabout, surprising ways.
Fleck received his first banjo at the age of fifteen, his interest in its sound piqued by Appalachian banjo legend Earl Scruggs’s performance of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song. “It was an existential crisis for me, being an Upper West Side New York kid learning to play the banjo, because it didn’t make sense to anybody around me,” Fleck says with a laugh. “It didn’t even make sense to me!” As a teenager, he sought the expertise of fellow Tri-Stater Tony Trischka, who had just released an influential solo debut, Bluegrass Light, after years of playing in country music ensembles.
“Béla was pretty unforgettable,” Trischka says. “He was sixteen and could already play bluegrass and fiddle tunes. He was interested in some of the weirder stuff I was doing,” which included introducing Middle Eastern–inspired modes and jazz improvisation to traditional bluegrass. Trischka had begun playing banjo in 1963, quickly becoming accustomed to the mocking cries of “Yee-haw!” that followed him whenever he carried his instrument around New York. He’d been honing his craft for nearly a decade when he took Fleck on as a student. “I would jam out on a traditional tune, and he would come back the next week having learned every note. After a few months, it was obvious that he didn’t need lessons.”
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