Dueling banjoes, bass solo highlight jazz performance

By Mark Wiley
Staff Writer

The gods of banjo and bass guitar were on stage Friday night as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones gave the Loeb Playhouse audience a crazy, joy-filled night full of fun jams and guitar mastery.

With hippies dancing in the aisles, jazz aficionados bouncing to the beat and country fans tapping their feet, the night seemed to be a fun time for all.

The grammy-winning Flecktones consist of banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, electric bass king Victor Wooten, horns/winds specialist Jeff Coffin and the eccentric percussionist/vocalist Roy "Futureman" Wooten.

Under scattered green spotlight and intermittent smoke, Fleck and friends jammed out tunes from his latest album "Outbound," with relaxed, stress-free smiles on their faces. Starting out with the jazzy "Scratch and Sniff," Fleck and Victor dueled with their instruments, each trying to upstage the other.

Coffin blasted away on his saxophones, sometimes playing two at the same time. As Fleck grooved into a solo, his eyes closed as he played from his heart, prompting, "He's loving it!" and "You rock!" from the crowd.

Drawing on the "dueling banjoes" theme, Fleck, Coffin, and the brothers Wooten took turns dueling, mimicking, and challenging each other, making for some hilarious moments.

The highlight of the show for many came during Victor's bass solo. Smiling and conjecturing to his own hypnotic rhythm, he showed off his unparalleled mastery, using a variety of unconventional techniques.

By patting and beating his guitar's frame, scratching and rapping down the strings, he prompted bellows of "You're a god!" and "How the did you do that?" from the audience.

Bobbing his head, lazily bouncing down the strings like a true blues man, he shocked the audience as he de-tuned and then re-tuned his guitar while playing through uninterrupted.

"There's only a couple of people in the world that can do that," said Kevin Townsend, a senior in the Schools of Engineering.

The show ended with two brilliant encores, in which the audience contributed with sound effects and clapping.

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