Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Not your average jazz show

Ken Francis Wenzel

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1998 | 5:28 a.m.

Tie dyes, deadheads, whirling dervishes, baby boomers, yuppies... sounds like a crowd usually found at outdoor rock festivals or Grateful Dead shows not at jazz concerts. I mean, jazz audiences? Don't they usually sit quietly, concentrating on the music and frowning on disturbances? Yes, they do - usually. But Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are not your usual jazz band, and their audiences are definitely not your usual jazz audiences.

Their unique blend of jazz, bluegrass, pop and funk has earned them a huge international following with massive crossover appeal. An appeal which translates to an extremely diverse crowd at their shows. Yes, the jazzheads are sitting down in front, digesting every note. But go back a few rows and you bump into deadheads twirling in the aisle or dancing at their seats. Back a few more, and you begin to see the yuppies and hipsters, arms securely around their dates. Keep going - now you'll start to find the baby boomers with Heinekens, the weekend warriors who play a little guitar when they're not at the office.

They're all drawn by the Flecktones' amazing blend of world-class improvisation and pop accessibility; of modern technology and acoustic instruments; of jazz sophistication and rock-and-roll fun.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are touring to support their new album, "Left of Cool," which features new member Jeff Coffin on saxophones and flute. Coffin's concept sounds like a cross between Branford Marsalis and Michael Brecker, tasteful and modern without leaning towards any commercial jazz clichis. He adds loads of color, presence and depth to the band, experimenting with envelope filters on the baritone sax and sounding especially strong on soprano.

The band showed Coffin off immediately in the opener - a heavy funk tune in which he played two saxophones at once in a ripping stop-time melody, eliciting cheers from the audience while providing a nice set-up for Fleck and bassist Vic Wooten to engage in some quite-acrobatic trading.

The band ran through more funk, with drummer Futureman stepping up on vocals. He got the crowd involved and had a surprisingly good voice - a sort of cross between Prince and Stevie Wonder. Next up was a Chick Corea samba featuring Coffin on flute, followed by a solo feature by Wooten. Wooten is considered to be one of the best electric bass players alive today, regularly winning polls and awards in jazz and bass magazines. He left the crowd stupefied, extrapolating on versions of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed" and the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" with his eight-finger tapping and slap-funk technique.

The second set began with Futureman's drum solo, an interesting combination of his self-invented "synthaxe drumitar" and a small acoustic kit. Then came a showstopping bluegrass-influenced tune off the new album, featuring beautiful trading between Wooten and Coffin and a soaring solo by Fleck. More funk grooves followed, with Wooten singing the song "What Did He Say?" from his solo album.

Fleck introduced the soprano sax feature "Who's Got Three?" as "gambling music," and traded with Wooten again on more funk. Fleck's unplugged banjo feature followed; after being introduced as "Banjo Spice" by Wooten, he explored a bluegrass motif, shaping a chord progression by continually adjusting his tuning pegs while playing. It gave an interesting "slide" effect to the solo and the audience loved it. The evening ended with the whole band stretching out on the group's Grammy-winning song "Sinister Minister;" the duel at the end of the song between brothers Wooten and Futureman brought the house down and provided a perfect cap to a great performance by one of today's best improvising groups.