A San Francisco Jazz Show, Banjo-Style

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have a short residency at the Blue Note starting Wednesday, December 17th. If their show at Yoshi's in San Francisco last month is any indication of what to expect, then their gigs here in New York should NOT be missed. Although, with these guys, it's hard to ever know just what to expect...

written for CabaretExchange.com:

What does it mean to defy expectations as a jazz quartet? It means to feature, even star, a banjo instead of a guitar. Two banjos, in fact: an acoustic one and a purple electric one. It means to play the banjo with such silky delicacy and to illicit notes from the electric bass at such extreme ends of the musical scale that the absence of a guitar goes unnoticed. It means to open a set with a song deeply rooted in funk music, move into a medley of Christmas songs and then add some sprinklings of bluegrass here and there to taste. To defy expectations means, at the end of the day, to play like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Keep reading...