Béla Fleck (born 1958) has taken the five-string banjo into jazz, classical, and African music. He came up in bluegrass, spent most of the 1980s in New Grass Revival, then led the jazz group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He has recorded banjo concertos, African collaborations, and duets with jazz pianist Chick Corea. He has won 18 Grammy Awards from 41 nominations, and he won the first IBMA Banjo Player of the Year award in 1990.
Why Fleck matters
Fleck proved that the banjo is a full musical instrument, able to play any style. He built on the melodic and single-string playing of Bill Keith and Tony Trischka, then added jazz harmony and classical technique. His records in jazz, classical, and world music led musicians outside bluegrass to take the banjo seriously. And he keeps coming home. His Bluegrass Sessions and My Bluegrass Heart albums show what all that range sounds like back in a bluegrass band.
Life and career
Fleck was born on July 10, 1958, in New York City. His father named him after three composers: Béla Bartók, Anton Webern, and Leoš Janáček. He heard Earl Scruggs play The Ballad of Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies and heard Dueling Banjos on the radio. At 15 his grandfather gave him a banjo found at a garage sale. A man at a train station tuned it and told him to get Pete Seeger’s book. He studied at New York’s High School of Music and Art and took banjo lessons from Tony Trischka.
After high school he joined the bluegrass band Tasty Licks and recorded two albums with them. His first solo album, Crossing the Tracks, came out on Rounder in 1979. That year he formed Spectrum with mandolinist Jimmy Gaudreau. From 1981 to 1989 he played in New Grass Revival with Sam Bush and Pat Flynn. His solo album Drive (Rounder, 1988) earned a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album.
He won the first IBMA Banjo Player of the Year award in 1990 and formed Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, a jazz group that brought him to rock and jazz stages. He toured with the Dave Matthews Band in 2000. In 2005 he traveled to Africa to record Throw Down Your Heart, about the banjo’s African roots, and a documentary followed. In 2008 he toured and recorded in Abigail Washburn’s Sparrow Quartet. The two married in 2009, and their 2014 duet album won the Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2016. He premiered his Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony in 2011. In 2020 he entered the IBMA hall of fame with New Grass Revival. My Bluegrass Heart came out in 2021, and he won IBMA Banjo Player of the Year again in 2022.
Playing style
Fleck uses every tool the banjo has. He plays Scruggs rolls, Keith-style melodic runs, and Reno-style single-string lines, and switches between them mid-phrase. He adds jazz chords and chromatic lines from his work with the Flecktones. In interviews and lessons he breaks his three-finger style down step by step, and he plays clawhammer beside Washburn.
Influences and legacy
Fleck started from Earl Scruggs and studied with Tony Trischka. He built on the melodic style of Bill Keith, with whom he and Trischka recorded Fiddle Tunes for Banjo in 1981. He played beside Sam Bush and Pat Flynn in New Grass Revival. The Bluegrass Sessions (1999) brought him together with Scruggs, John Hartford, Sam Bush, and Stuart Duncan.
Signature tunes and songs
Whitewater Sinister Minister, the Flecktones Tennessee, with Billy Strings.
Essential recordings
Crossing the Tracks (Rounder, 1979) Natural Bridge (Rounder, 1982) Drive (Rounder, 1988) The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2 (Rounder, 1999) My Bluegrass Heart (BMG, 2021)
Awards and honors
IBMA Banjo Player of the Year (1990) Grammy, Best Folk Album, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn (2016) International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, New Grass Revival (2020) IBMA Banjo Player of the Year (2022) 18 Grammy Awards in total, from 41 nominations
Watch and listen
In this 1984 video, a young Fleck teaches banjo picking styles.
Fleck plays Whitewater with his My Bluegrass Heart band at Grey Fox in 2022.
What to learn from Fleck
Start with the 1984 lesson above. Learn one of his bluegrass tunes slow, and pay attention to how he moves from a roll into a melodic run. The technique to steal is his left hand. Fleck plans his fingerings so notes connect without gaps. Map out the fingering for one hard passage before you play it fast. Then speed comes without a fight.
Sources
Béla Fleck, Wikipedia Fleck, Béla, BluegrassBios.com International Bluegrass Music Awards, Wikipedia
Related players
See the banjo players hub and the bluegrass banjo guide for more pickers. Fleck studied with Tony Trischka, recorded with Bill Keith, and played in New Grass Revival with Sam Bush and Pat Flynn.