A famous American professional banjo player Bela Fleck was born on July 10, 1958. He is probably most well known for his work with the group Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. He himself described the music they played as a mixture of electronic and acoustic music, pierced with folk and bluegrass traditions.
The full name of Fleck is Béla Anton Leoš Fleck. He was named after a famous Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and two Czech composers Antonín Dvoĝák and Leoš Janáèek. When Bela Fleck first heard Earl Scruggs’s playing the banjo, he was so attracted that decided to learn to play the instrument as well. The boy received his first banjo lessons from his grandfather, when he was fifteen years old. Several years later, Bela Fleck went to study French horn at High School of Music and Art in New York. After graduating from high school, he traveled to Boston and played with Jack Tottle and Mark Schatz (Tasty Licks). It was with this band that Bela Fleck played for his first album Crossing the Tracks (1979).
Before 1981, Bela Fleck played on the streets of Boston with Mark Schatz until they decided to form a band, which they called Spectrum: the Band. Fleck was touring with Spectrum before he was asked to join New Grass Revival. Nine years Bela Fleck spent together with the group. During that period, Fleck recorded his second solo album, Drive. It became a Grammy Award nominee in the category of Best Bluegrass Album (in 1988).
In 1988, Fleck and Victor Wooten formed Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, together with harmonica player Howard Levy and synthesizer-based percussion player Roy Wooten. After Levy’s leaving, the group became a trio, but that was until saxophone player Jeff Coffin joined the group. The four released their new album Left of Cool in 1998.
Performing with the Flecktones, Bela Fleck was awarded with several Grammies. Moreover, he was a nominee in more categories than any other musician (country, folk, pop, spoken word, bluegrass, jazz, classical, as well as arranging and composition).
In 2001, Bela Fleck made collaboration with his friend and partner Edgar Meyer recording Perpetual Motion, an album consisting of classical music played on the banjo along with several accompanists, including Evelyn Glennie, John Williams, Joshua Bell, and Gary Hoffman. The work included Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 4 in C# minor, Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo, and more.
In 2005, Bela Fleck created several new projects. He made records with several African traditional musicians, co-wrote a documentary film, which is called 'Bring it Home' , co-produced Song of the Traveling Daughter, and formed the Acoustic Fusion super-group named TRIO! with Jean-Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke.
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