Béla Fleck

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck ( ; born July 10, 1958) is an American virtuoso banjo player whose work blends bluegrass with other genres, including jazz, and who is known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck has won 18 Grammy Awards and been nominated 41 times.

In 2020, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame as a member of New Grass Revival.

Early life, family and education Béla Anton Leoš Fleck was born into a Jewish family in New York City. He was named after three classical composers his father admired: The father left the family when Béla was a year old. They did not meet again until Béla was in his 40s. and when he heard "Dueling Banjos" by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell on the radio. At the age of 15, while visiting his grandparents in New Jersey, he received his first banjo, which his grandfather had found at a garage sale. During the train ride home, a man who was waiting for the train tuned the banjo for him, and suggested he learn to play from the book How to Play the Five String Banjo by Pete Seeger. Fleck attended the High School of Music & Art in New York City, where he played French horn until he flunked and was transferred to the choir. He spent most of his time on the banjo; he studied the book Bluegrass Banjo by Pete Wernick, and took lessons from Erik Darling, Marc Horowitz, and Tony Trischka.

Career Early career After graduating from high school, he moved to New York City and became a member of the bluegrass group Tasty Licks, with whom he recorded two albums. He released his debut solo album, Crossing the Tracks (1979), and it was chosen Best Overall Album by the readers of Frets magazine.

In 1989 Fleck was invited to join the supergroup Strength in Numbers, headed by Sam Bush on mandolin, with Jerry Douglas on resonator guitar (dobro), Edgar Meyer on bass, and Mark O'Connor on violin. The group recorded just one album, The Telluride Sessions, before Bush disbanded the group.

In 2001, he collaborated with Edgar Meyer on Perpetual Motion, an album of classical music played on the banjo. They were accompanied by John Williams, Evelyn Glennie, Joshua Bell, and Gary Hoffman. Perpetual Motion won Grammy Awards for Best Arrangement and Best Classical Crossover Album.

Fleck and Meyer composed a double concerto for banjo and bass and performed its debut with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. They were commissioned by the Orchestra to compose a trio concerto, for which they invited Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain. The concerto debuted in Nashville in 2006 when it was recorded for the album The Melody of Rhythm. Fleck premiered the Concerto for Banjo in Nashville, Tennessee on September 22, 2011, performing it with the full Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

In 2005, while the Flecktones were on hiatus, Fleck undertook several new projects: recording with traditional African musicians; co-writing the documentary Bring it Home about the Flecktones; co-producing Song of the Traveling Daughter, the debut album by his wife, Abigail Washburn; forming the acoustic fusion supergroup Trio! with Jean-Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke; and recording an album as a member of the Sparrow Quartet with Washburn, Ben Sollee, and Casey Driessen.

He appeared on the cover of the July/August 2013 issue of Making Music magazine.

Alone and with the Flecktones, Fleck has appeared at the High Sierra Music Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Merlefest, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Toronto Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Delfest, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Shakori Hills, Bonnaroo, New Orleans Jazz Fest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Strawberry Music Festival, and Rochester International Jazz Festival.

Fleck is the subject of a documentary film. In Throw Down Your Heart (2008), a film crew follows him on his travels in Africa where he collaborates with some of the best musicians and researches the African origins of the banjo. In a New York Times article about the film, Stephen Holden writes: "At every stop on a journey that takes him from Uganda to Tanzania to Gambia and finally to Mali, Mr. Fleck plays and records with gifted local musicians. Early in the film, a Ugandan villager insists that the common perception of Africa as a continent ravaged by war and disease is 'just a very small bit of what Africa is,' and Throw Down Your Heart sets out to prove him right."

Personal life Fleck and his wife Abigail Washburn play a duet at Shakori Hills Festival in 2010 Fleck is married to banjo player Abigail Washburn. Washburn first met Fleck in Nashville at a square dance at which she was dancing and he was playing. Fleck produced Washburn's first solo album. Fleck brought Washburn to the wedding of his half-brother, award-winning children's television writer Sascha Paladino, in August 2007, and they played in a scratch band composed of wedding party members. In May 2009, the Bluegrass Intelligencer website satirized the upcoming "strategic marriage" of Washburn and Fleck, joking that the couple promised a "male heir" who will be the "Holy Banjo Emperor."

Fleck and Washburn have two sons, born 2013 and 2018.

Discography

Accolades Grammy Awards and nominations Fleck has shared Grammy Awards with Asleep at the Wheel, Alison Brown, and Edgar Meyer. He has been nominated in more categories than any other musician, namely country, pop, jazz, bluegrass, classical, folk, spoken word, composition, and arranging.