Sep. 26, 2012 - Issue #884: Strangelove
Béla Fleck
Know how to 'Jo? Béla Fleck and his four-string
Few have elevated the profile of the banjo—that calling card of bluegrass music, duelling instrumentals and indie bands looking to add a folksy rattle to their sound—as much as Béla Fleck has in his decades-long dalliance with its four strings.
He's been pushing the instrument's boundaries upwards since receiving one at the age of 15, championing its bluegrass traditions while forging ahead into jazzier, more improvisational territories with his Flecktones outfit. He's traced the instrument's history from its modern pulse to its little-known ancient heart in Africa, in the acclaimed 2009 doc Throw Down Your Heart. Simply put, he's widened the worldwide appreciation of the banjo, and a closet full of 14 won Grammy Awards (and a total 30 nominations) acknowledges his proficiency in doing just that.
But before 2011, Fleck had never done anything like Banjo Concerto. He'd made some forays into orchestral music, but never before set his four-string front-and-centre before the lush sweeps of a full orchestra. Nobody had, actually, though the idea had been playing on Fleck's mind for some time before he began to craft it.
"I have wanted to create a banjo concerto for many years," Fleck explains in an email interview. "It probably began when I saw [contemporary bassist] Edgar Meyer perform his first concerto—and I wondered if I could pull something like that off for the banjo. It took about 25 years to get up the nerve! In the meantime, I collaborated with him on a double concerto, and worked with Edgar and Zakir Hussain to create a triple concerto. After these two projects, I felt prepared to try it on my own."
It's 2011 debut was a success, and now, after a number of gigs with American orchestras, Edmonton gets the Concerto's Canadian premiere, Fleck set to pluck his vintage 1937 mahogany Gibson Mastertone while conductor Bill Eddin's keeps watch over the ESO's swirls of instrumentation. (The concerto is to be followed by a solo banjo recital from Fleck.)
The challenge in crafting the Concerto, Fleck notes, came not so much in adapting his instrument to the symphonic setting—he recalls that he'd sometimes sing out his ideas and decide what instruments would get each part later on, finding a give and take between banjo and orchestra as he slowly pieced it together in parts—but in actually inking every note, putting improvisation aside to produce a set-in-stone score.
"I'm so used to playing with other improvisers that I had never written every note of a piece before," he explains. "Usually I write a sketch and everyone fills it in together. So it was a serious adjustment."
Fleck's dedicated the concerto to one of the instrument's early pioneers and the man he credits with introducing him to banjo music: Earl Scruggs.
"I wouldn't play banjo if it weren't for Earl," Fleck says. "He was an incredible trailblazer for the instrument. But he never played with an orchestra. We talked about that, and I realized that I am continuing his arc. There are several things that I have been able to be the first to do—but I wouldn't have been that person if it weren't for everything he did to set things up."
Tue, Oct 2 (7:30 pm)
Banjo Concerto
Winspear Centre, $20 – $50
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