Bonding Through Bach

Bèla Fleck and Edgar Meyer prepare an evening of classical and original music.

By: Daniel Shearer
   Plenty of listeners will call it a natural progression. Banjo guru Bèla Fleck, who for years has been delivering a jaw-dropping encore combination of various Bach works and the Beverly Hillbillies theme, finally got around to recording an all-classical album.

Bèla Fleck will perform classical music, as well as bluegrass-tinged original compositions in a gig with his friend, bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pa.

   Sure, the man might be considered by some to be a genius, but until recently, most people
had only heard him perform a handful of classical numbers, maybe a few licks tossed into some crazy jazz tune
for kicks. Truth be told, Mr. Fleck does a fairly impressive Bach Invention — six of them, to be precise
— along with a Scarlatti sampling and works by Debussy, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Paganini.
   To accomplish this feat, Mr. Fleck solicited the aid of longtime friend and bassist Edgar
Meyer, who helped arrange and produce 20 tracks for the CD Perpetual Motion, released last year on
Sony Classical. The duo will soon embark on a 15-date tour, which includes a stop at the Keswick Theatre in
Glenside Feb. 3. The concert will present a mixture of original music composed for the tour — hybrid
stuff with jazz, bluegrass and traditional music influences — along with classical selections.
   "Back in the early ’80s, Bèla and I would do an occasional Bach piece together,"
says Mr. Meyer, who crossed paths with Mr. Fleck in Aspen, Colo. At the time, Mr. Fleck was performing with
the progressive bluegrass band New Grass Revival.
   Like his banjo-playing counterpart, Mr. Meyer had a fondness for classical music and bluegrass.
Shortly before their first meeting, in fact, Mr. Meyer competed in the nearby Pitkin County Fair Fiddle Contest
playing an upright bass. The logic seems sound enough. After all, the instrument is shaped like a fiddle,
only bigger.
   "It was quite a novelty," Mr. Meyer says. "I think everybody was young and ambitious and
trying to find out what the edges and limits were on their instruments, what the possibilities were.
   "I was mainly playing classical music at that point in my life. I had a friend, Les Johnson.
We used to play out in the mall for tips, and we did a combination of jazz tunes, and a few fiddle tunes,
maybe a Beatles tune or two. I was doing a lot of melody playing at that point. It’s a little different from
anything I would exactly do now."
   Encouraged by a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Fleck dropped by for a quick jam. The encounter
evolved into a 20-year collaboration. Along the way, Mr. Fleck broke new ground with the Flecktones, an innovative,
primarily instrumental quartet that consistently defies description, while Mr. Meyer established himself as
an eclectic composer and performer with one foot in the classical music realm and the other firmly rooted
in folk music. Their partnership reached a new plateau in October 1997, when they opened the season for the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with mandolinist Mike Marshall. The concert coincided with the release
of Uncommon Ritual, also on Sony Classical. Both musicians now live in Nashville.

Bassist and composer Edgar Meyer

   "We play a lot of different types of music together," Mr. Meyer says. "There’s a lot of
dialogue between us, and I think it shows in every way, most especially in the way we play together and even
in the way we converse and deal with each other.
   "We wrote a lot of new music for this tour and one we did last October. I would say by the
time we’re out on the road in February, between a third and half of the music will be stuff we’ve written
just for these tours."
   One of the challenges inherent in performing classical music on a banjo is that none of
the pieces were written with banjo technique in mind. Mr. Fleck faced the daunting task of figuring out which
strings could produce the notes in sequence. The album’s title track, Paganini’s "Moto Perpetuo," proved to
be a monstrous technical undertaking. The work is famous for the nimble bowing required to play it on violin.
   " ‘Moto Perpetuo’ is much more difficult on the banjo than it is on the violin, because
you constantly have to change techniques, and you have to do it at a speed at which it doesn’t sound like
you’re changing technique," Mr. Fleck says. "What set me up for it was learning complicated fiddle tunes.
That’s something you have to do as a banjo player. A fiddler shows up and says ‘Hey, we’re playing ‘Gray Eagle.’
You say, ‘Well, how’s that go?’
   "And it turns out that it’s got four or five parts and each part has difficult things to
play on the banjo, and you learn it. After years and years of learning fiddle tunes, ‘Moto Perpetuo’ was like
the hardest fiddle tune I ever learned."
   Bach, it seems, lends itself well to banjo transcription, accomplished in this case with
the aid of a computer program that produced custom tablature. Normal sheet music isn’t always helpful for
a banjo player. It has the notes but contains little information about where to play them on the instrument.
   "Earlier music is easier," Mr. Meyer says. "Once you get into a Brahms violin sonata, you’re
really tied to the sonority of those two instruments inextricably. There are two limitations on the banjo:
It doesn’t have a big range and it has very little sustain. What it has is actually quite beautiful, and you
can learn to love that.

Image from Bèla Fleck’s Perpetual Motion CD, released last year on Sony Classical.

   "I remember discussions with Béla 19 years ago about ways to really make this instrument
fly, and you’ve gotta use more notes. There’s no two ways about it. Bach was actually a great model. Writing
for the clavichord and the harpsichord, those instruments didn’t have great sustain. He had dealt with some
of those issues in his own music."
   The effort, aided no doubt by guest appearances from classical guitarist John Williams and
violinist Joshua Bell, earned the pair two Grammy Awards for the album, "Best Classical Crossover" and another,
"Best Instrumental Arrangement," for "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" from Debussy’s Children’s Corner.
   "It’s sort of a great bond for us," Mr. Fleck says. "Edgar is a huge Bach freak and I’m
getting to be one as well. For me, it’s kind of gotten to be a thing where if I don’t play some Bach, I feel
like I haven’t done something important."
   Meanwhile, Mr. Meyer recently completed his next opus, tentatively slated for release later
this year.
   "It’s a project with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Hugh Wolfe, and also with Joshua Bell
and Yo-Yo Ma," Mr. Meyer says. "We did a concerto for bass by Bottesini, a piece that I wrote, also a concerto
for bass, then a double concerto for cello and bass with orchestra that I wrote, and then Bottesini’s double
concerto for violin and bass. It’s enough bass concertos to last you through the decade."
Bèla Fleck and Edgar Meyer will perform at the Keswick Theatre, Easton Road and Keswick Avenue,
Glenside, Feb. 3, 3 p.m. Tickets cost $28.50. For information, call (215) 572-7650. On the Web: www.keswicktheatre.com.
Bèla Fleck and the Flecktones will perform at McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton,
N.J., March 10, 3 p.m. Tickets cost $30-$35. For information, call (609) 258-2787. On the Web: www.mccarter.org.
Flecktones on the Web: www.flecktones.com; Edgar Meyer
on the Web: www.edgarmeyer.com



Also watch for a TimeOFF interview with Bèla Fleck about upcoming releases from the Flecktones.