Review: Beguiling Music by Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer

Review: Beguiling music by Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer - San Jose Mercury News 5/27/10
5/27/10 5:15 PM
34-stop international tour. (The trio will be at the

Review: Beguiling music Mountain Winery in Saratoga on June 13 and at
by Béla Fleck, Zakir Carmel's Sunset Center on June 23.)
Hussain and Edgar Meyer But already the music was digesting its many
influences — one could hear bluegrass, jazz, raga
and much else — and doing it with the sensuous,
rscheinin@mercurynews.com relaxed virtuosity that
Posted: 05/27/2010 04:40:33 PM PDT
is often found in classical Indian music. In fact, one

Updated: 05/27/2010 04:40:34 PM PDT
could hear the banjo, with its nasal sonority, as a
faux sitar, and Meyer, who settled into a calm
SAN FRANCISCO — When Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain pizzicato stroll through the center of the music —
and Edgar Meyer walked onstage the other night at every note fat and resonant, setting up a kind of
the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, they wore their drone — as carrying out the grounding function of
worlds-in-collision musical ethos on their bodies. the tamboura.
There was banjoist Fleck, all casual, a pre-Land's It was a mostly quiet and largely egoless music, with
End kind of guy, and tabla player Hussain in his lots of space and not too many notes. Nobody was
flowing Indian garb, and acoustic bassist Meyer in trying to impress, though so much of what was
button-down shirt and tie, but rumpled, like happening was impressive. The very clarity and in-
remnants of his background in classical music and tune-ness of Meyer's arco passagework stood out;
academia. bowed improvising rarely happens at this level of
comfort. And then Hussain: His micro-control of the
The look of this super-trio soon flowed into its drums' tuning allowed him to match rhythms with
beguiling performance: those multiple worlds as the rapid scales and melodies, at times with Meyer's
Big Universal Playground. very bass lines.
"Babar," a tune by Hussain, began with Meyer "Out of the Blue" — attributed to all three members of
bowing a floating ballad melody — think of Bach's the group on its recent "The Melody of Rhythm" CD
equipoise or an old English air, but with graceful — began with a long solo improvisation by the
swoops and embellishments implying India. The drummer, for whom this sold-out concert presented
melody strained toward feathery high notes — a by SFJazz was a hometown affair. (He has lived in
weightless elephant, dancing en pointe — before Marin for decades.)
Fleck entered with a plucky back-porch theme and
began to improvise triplety sequences, which So many sounds from this man's drums: slides,
merged with the gentle fingertip barrage of snaps (almost like timbales), then deep underwater
Hussain's hand-drums, sounding like rain on the va-rooms from the low drums. That persistent
roof. raindrop pattering, the whir of a propeller, the b
eating of wings: One could hear it all, coaxed by
Tuesday's concert was only the second stop on a fingertips, palms and the heels of Hussain's hands.
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Review: Beguiling music by Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer - San Jose Mercury News 5/27/10 5:15 PM
And always, the subdivision of the beat, so many Also: 8 p.m. June 23, Sunset Center, San Carlos
crisscrossing subdivisions, all maintained without Street at Ninth Avenue, Carmel. Tickets: $47-$65;
even a sign of fatigue. www.sunsetcenter.tix.com or 831-620-2048
This went on for several minutes before "Out of the

Blue" moved toward the blues: Fleck's gleaming and
distant banjo chords, echoing Miles Davis' "So
What," and a boogaloo-ish bass line from Meyer,
reminiscent of Dizzy Gillespie's "I'll Never Go Back to
Georgia."
After intermission, Meyer played — gorgeously, on

bowed double bass — the Prelude from Bach's Suite
No. 2 for Solo Cello. It was just one more surprise
plotted by the group, surely the first in history to
mix Bach, banjo and tabla. And "Oh! Susanna," a
recurring theme in a stand-alone improvisation by
Fleck.
On "Nu," also by Fleck, I was struck by the

catchiness and elemental quality of the music: An
old Blues Project LP leapt to mind. So did Ornette
Coleman's harmolodicism, because the music
seemed so pliant, as much about mood and
intuition as anything else.
The encore hinted at something Brazilian: What

next? With the confluence of so many influences,
one might expect this trio's music to be crowded,
overloaded, tipping over with ambition. Instead, it
was spare and open, patiently finding its way.
Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069.
Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer

Upcoming shows
When: 7:30 p.m. June 13 (a double bill with the
Chick Corea Freedom Band)
Where: Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce Road,
Saratoga
Tickets: $49.50-$99.50; www.moutainwinery.com
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Review: Beguiling music by Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer - San Jose Mercury News 5/27/10

34-stop international tour. (The trio will be at the

is often found in classical Indian music. In fact, one

This went on for several minutes before "Out of the

After intermission, Meyer played — gorgeously, on

On "Nu," also by Fleck, I was struck by the

The encore hinted at something Brazilian: What

Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069.

Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer

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