Béla Fleck Live Stream Review: 1/8, Mandolin
If anything, you knew Béla Fleck could adapt. Cancelled flights, COVID-19, a broken down car, and even the weather threatened not just the specific lineup of his celebration of My Bluegrass Heart, his latest album, but that the event would take place at all. (Indeed, a snowstorm delayed the show at Ryman Auditorium by one night.) At the end of the day, Fleck and his team of bluegrass heavyweights put on a three-hour show at the Ryman and streaming on Mandolin. Though not everybody from his Grammy-nominated My Bluegrass Heart appeared on stage, the band’s talent level and ingenuity helped adapt many of its songs to the performance.
As players came out one by one on set opener “Blue Mountain Hop” (the only song performed from either of Fleck’s previous two albums in his bluegrass trilogy), you watched a blueprint for how this formidable group of instrumentalists build and break down songs. Mandolin, guitar, fiddle, dobro, bass, and banjo called and responded and traded off with simultaneous firmness and tenderness; as cliché as it sounds, the band’s chemistry was palpable. Throughout, big names substituted for each other like at an all-star game, like Sierra Hull for New Grass Revival cofounder Sam Bush, giving a lesson in dexterity for Chris Thile on “Slippery Eel”, or Michael Cleveland for Stuart Duncan.
Fleck, who after some corny jokes quipped that “with this level of emcee work, you’ll soon understand why I’m an instrumentalist,” nonetheless provided context for many songs, not entirely apparent from just listening to the album. For instance, “Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe, who infamously didn’t like New Grass Revival, eventually became friendly with the band and gave them “The Old North Woods”, at least the title, as Fleck admitted to forgetting the makeup of the original tune Monroe taught them. Still, even if the version played Saturday night and from My Bluegrass Heart was different from whatever Monroe played, you could tell Fleck constantly keeps in mind the tension between old and new stalwarts of the genre. He introduced “Charm School” by differentiating between “traditional bluegrass and the other kind,” adding that, “This is the other kind and the perfect band to play the other kind.” Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Bush, beloved new kid on the block Billy Strings, Cleveland, and bassist Mark Schatz led an enormous jam. And thinking I heard some Afropop flourishes on rhythmic duet “Psalm 136″, another where Hull stepped in for Thile, Fleck shared that his bluegrass version actually did reference that of the Abayudaya Ugandan Jews, who have adopted it as part of their “musical cultural memory.” It’s nice to see Fleck calling back to bluegrass’s Black roots.
On a base level, it was also great to see individual players or groups of a couple shine during non-solo moments. Douglas’ twangy dobro contrasted Cleveland’s deep, emotive fiddling on “Round Rock” and “Our Little Secret”, while Strings’ cascading picking highlighted “Tentacle Dragon (Revenge of the)”. Multi-instrumentalist Justin Moses, who went all over the stage, showcased dobro playing much more sharp than Douglas’ expansiveness on tracks like “Wheels Up”. And though My Bluegrass Heart is entirely instrumental, considering the gorgeous voices on stage, I was glad to see Fleck and company end the show with four songs with vocals. Bush and Hull duetted on New Grass Revival’s “When The Storm Is Over”, Hull and guitarist Molly Tuttle on Bill Monroe’s “Dark as the Night, Blue as the Day”, Hull and Moses on “I’m on My Way Back to the Old Home”. And Strings’ powerful wail led “Tennessee (I Hear You Calling Me)”. As a celebration of an album and a genre’s past, present, and future, Fleck’s show at the Ryman was all-encompassing and thrilling.
