That the genre-defying group BÇla Fleck and the Flecktones won its third Grammy recently in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category for the summer 2000 CD release, Outbound, should come as no surprise.
The group has turned heads nationwide with its blend of bluegrass, jazz and everything in between.
The award, though, is the band’s first in any jazz category — the other two Grammys came in 1996 for “The Sinister Minister” in the Best Pop Instrumental category, and in 1996, when the group won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition with “Almost 12.”
The Flecktones, led by BÇla (pronounced Bay-la) and his banjo, have always fallen into the “jazz” genre primarily because their sound is so unconventional. But the group may be better suited for an “experimental” tag.
BÇla has won two Grammys; his first in 1995 with the band Asleep at the Wheel for the song “Hightower” in the Best Country Instrumental Performance, and the other this year for his work with Alison Brown on the track “Leaving Cottondale” from her Fairweather album. He and Brown — also a banjoist — took home the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance category.
The Flecktones are Victor-Lemonte Wooten on bass; Jeff Coffin on saxophones, clarinets, wood whistles and other wind instruments; and Wooten’s brother RoyEl/Futureman who plays a bastardized guitar-shaped instrument called a Drumitar. It’s a one-of-a-kind creation made by Futureman that allows him to play drums, percussions and samples all at once.
But it was Coffin’s joining in 1998 that may have pushed the band closer to the jazzier side of life.
“Whenever you change the dynamic of a group, it does a lot of things,” Coffin said. “All the other people on the album had a lot to do with it, too. I do a lot of R&B and session work, so it’s not just jazz that influences us; it’s other things, too.”
Coffin, who hosts jam sessions in Nashville in addition to doing session work and maintaining his own burgeoning solo career, said people should not feel that the Flecktones are all that unconventional.
“It seems like it’s a non-traditional setup, and there are non-traditional sounds with what Futureman is playing and with what’s going on with BÇla’s playing,” Coffin said. “But there’s a lot of tradition. You hear the blues, world music, African music, Spanish and Indian music, so there’s a lot of common ground.”
New or interested fans of the Flecktones’ music might wonder how a banjo fit into a jazz group.
“Louie Armstrong had a banjo in his band,” Coffin said. “It’s actually an African instrument brought here from Africa. But it’s BÇla’s influences — from Charlie Parker and Charlie Christian, to John Coltrane to Bach and Beethoven, along with Indian, flamenco and Irish music — that makes him different. So he’s not a banjo player in the sense of a Country banjo player or an Appalachian player. It’s a sound that people have never heard.”
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Coffin himself takes an original approach to playing saxophone. He has employed a technique in which he plays two saxophones simultaneously, which allows him to harmonize with himself and and create yet another unique dimension to the Flecktones’ sound.
“There used to be a saxophonist named Rashaan Roland Kirk who used to play up to three saxophones at a time,” Coffin said. “He died in 1977 and was the catalyst for that sound. I just love the feeling of it, the sound of it. It’s not meant to be a gimmick or something other than what it is — a very primitive, very organic sound.”
Coffin’s first solo album, Commonality, was up for a 1998 Independent Music Award in the Best Jazz Recording category and Coffin is now completing work on his forthcoming Compass Records release Go ‘Round, which is in the mixing process. Nevertheless, Coffin said playing with the Flecktones is the gig of a lifetime.
“It’s one of those things that you have to keep pinching yourself,” Coffin said.
He also said that winning his first Grammy was an unforgettable experience.
“We were in L.A. and Victor was home in Nashville with his newborn child,” Coffin said. “BÇla had just won the first Grammy for ‘Leaving Cottondale,’ so Futureman and I went up (to accept the award). It was very cool, exciting and surreal. Kind of like being in a Salvador Dali painting.”
The group’s appearance in Albuquerque tomorrow night will be the third performance of its current U.S. tour. The “Outbound 2001” tour will later take the band to England, Germany, the Netherlands and France before bringing it back for more dates in America. Coffin said hitting the road allowed for the band to remain creative.
“To me, the experiences that you have really affect how you write, what you write and the reason you write,” Coffin said. “So we’re changing a lot of stuff and we already have new material and new tunes to perform.”
Tickets for the band’s performance at the Sunshine Theatre are $20 and are available at Ticketmaster outlets. The show begins at 8 p.m.
