Bela Fleck Hidden Land CD

Béla Fleck: Béla Fleck; Future Man (synthesizer); Victor Wooten (bass guitar); Jeff Coffin.
Personnel: Béla Fleck (guitar, banjo, electric banjo, synthesizer); Future Man (vocals, throat singing, drums); Jeff Coffin (throat singing, whistling, flute, conch shell, clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, keyboards, synthesizer, bells, sleigh bell); Victor Wooten (synthesizer, electric bass).
Audio Mixers: Béla Fleck; Robert Battaglia.
Recording information: Sanctuary Studios.
Photographer: Frank Ockenfels.
Arrangers: Béla Fleck; Victor Wooten.
Bela Fleck's progressive fusion of jazz, bluegrass, classical, rock, and anything else he can get his hands on has been surprising listeners for some time now. 2006's THE HIDDEN LAND offers more of the same, though "sameness" for Fleck is liberated from its usual meaning. For example, the elaborate riff on Bach's "Fugue from Prelude & Fugue No. 20" that opens the disc is a stylistic whiplash that manages to incorporate bop, swing, funk, and psychedelia while still honoring the spirit of the original.
Fleck's genre-smashing banjo playing is enough to win the heart of any adventurous listener, but his Flecktones--who include bassist Victor Wooten, multi-instrumentalist Jeff Coffin, and drummer Future Man--are as flexible and risk-hungry on their instruments as the leader is on his. Whether on breezy, tuneful jams like "Roccoco" or frenetic free bop like "Couch Potato" (which comes complete with countrified interludes), Fleck and the Flecktones keep fans guessing, but in the most delightful way.
Nearly three years since the outrageous exercise in self-indulgence that was the three-disc Little Worlds, Béla Fleck & the Flecktones come back to the marketplace with The Hidden Land. The former outing was so excessive that Sony issued a single-disc sampler from the set hoping it would sell. Thankfully, the new set is a single disc, and for fans of the band there is plenty here to delight. The fusion of instrumental musics here -- jazz, bluegrass, funk, classical, and some global sounds is called by Fleck "serious Flecktones." It feels serious. For starters, the quartet dig into Bach's Preludes and Fugues (No. 20 in A Minor) to kick things off. It's a classic piece of the Flecktones wearing the original enough to make it their own. It's entertaining only for the sound of Fleck's 1937 Gibson Mastertone banjo. Much more compelling is "Labyrinth," a winding, knotty journey through jazz and improvisation -- the funk undertones of the piece are carried by Victor Wooten's gnarly bass line. But even here, Future Man's "Synth-Axe Drumitar" and his vocals -- poorly aping Naná Vasconcelos' glorious wordless singing from Pat Metheny's earlier recordings -- are more than what's really necessary. What moves this cut is Jeff Coffin's wondrous tenor playing. "Kaleidoscope"'s knotty blend of bluegrass riffing between Fleck and Coffin is stomping and beautiful, though it gets bogged down in fusiony nonsense on the choruses. But the moving playing in the bridge between the aforementioned pair over the skittering acoustic drums and programmed Drumitar keeps it grounded even when the piece becomes more abstract toward the end. The lyrical abstraction on the ballad "Who's Got Three" is amorphous but eerie and beautiful. It slips directly into the nearly straight-ahead swinging jazz of the horribly titled "Weed Whacker." The musical ideas here are, as usual, endless, which doesn't make it a great record. There are simply so many things vying for attention, seeking to make themselves known here, that a few less would have made individual compositions stand out more. The wandering, perhaps meandering, minor-key Middle Eastern flavor of "Chennai" works well because it's not cluttered and has distinctly different phases. The funky "Subterfuge" is just plain boring, and "Misunderstood" is just a mess, a mishmash of half-baked ideas couched in a ballad. As the "Whistle Tune," closeDown Beat (p.68) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Fleck exhibits his usual musical mastery of all styles, creating sparkling solos powered by both passion and precision."
JazzTimes (p.72) - "[I]t is wildly eclectic and teeming with all the complex parts, disciplined stop-time unison lines, odd time signatures and cleverly superimposed rhythms that have become a signature of this extraordinary band."
Dirty Linen (p.83) - "[T]his CD is a genre-hopping showcase of superb instrumentation and musical innovation."