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34-475: The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials . The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar , and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit

68-560: A 147-acre retreat in Only, Tennessee , near Nashville. Wooten co-leads the "Victor Wooten/Berklee Summer Bass Workshop" at Berklee College of Music in Boston. At Berklee and his own camps, he collaborates with Berklee Bass Department chair, Steve Bailey . The two bassists have been teaching together since the early 1990s. He was featured on the May/June 2014 cover of Making Music Magazine to discuss

102-553: A gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Jeff Coffin amicably left the band in 2010 to join the Dave Matthews Band . Original member Howard Levy rejoined the following year in 2011, when the band recorded and released their eleventh album Rocket Science . In June 2012, following another summer tour,

136-497: A newly energized Flecktones." Béla Fleck and the Flecktones have 10 studio albums, 2 live albums, and 1 compilation album. Former Victor Wooten Victor Lemonte Wooten (born September 11, 1964) is an American bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group's formation in 1988 and a member of the band SMV with two other bassists, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller . From 2017 to 2019 he recorded as

170-562: A slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and

204-459: A style sometimes dubbed " blu - bop ". Of the album Béla Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he

238-639: Is an American saxophonist, composer, and educator. He is a three-time Grammy Award winner as a member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones , with whom he performed from 1997 until 2010. In July 2008, Coffin began touring with Dave Matthews Band and joined the group in 2009 following the death of founding member LeRoi Moore . He also leads his group Jeff Coffin & the Mu'tet. Born in Massachusetts and raised in Dexter, Maine , Coffin began playing alto sax in fifth grade under

272-544: Is created from two pieces of naturally finished wood (Ebony and Holly, for example), fitted together to create the Yin-Yang pattern. As well as playing electric bass (both fretted and fretless) and the double bass, he played cello in high school. He still plays cello occasionally with the Flecktones as well as in the 2012 Sword and Stone/Words and Tones tour. Jeff Coffin Jeff Stanley Coffin (born August 5, 1965)

306-470: Is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine. In 2018–2019 Wooten was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition called focal dystonia in his hands and upper body, which had been limiting his ability to play in previous years, but has since abated somewhat. Born to Dorothy and Elijah Wooten, Victor

340-561: Is the youngest of the five Wooten brothers; Regi, Roy , Rudy, and Joseph Wooten are all musicians. Regi began to teach Victor to play bass when he was two, and by the age of six, he was performing with his brothers in their family band, The Wooten Brothers Band. As a United States Air Force family, they moved often when Wooten was young. The family settled in Newport News, Virginia , in 1972. Wooten graduated from Denbigh High School in 1982. While in high school, he and his brothers played in

374-595: The University of North Texas and graduated with a degree in Music Education in 1990. A recipient of a Jazz Studies grant from the NEA , in 1991, he studied under saxophonist Joe Lovano . In 1997, he became a member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones . Due to extensive touring requirements, he left the Flecktones in 2008. During the same year, he joined the Dave Matthews Band for their summer tour after saxophonist LeRoi Moore

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408-583: The Flecktones ( Warner Bros , 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop" and contained the Flecktones's version of " The Star-Spangled Banner ". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). One of its songs, "Bonnie & Slyde", had Fleck playing banjo atypically with

442-639: The Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Thom Jurek of AllMusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions,"

476-549: The Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with

510-444: The Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly , wrote that

544-407: The Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, " Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to

578-454: The PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and using it to explore a more complex series of his own compositions. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of selecting a genre under which to stock their whimsically titled albums, whose covers bore cartoons. The leader played electric banjo and

612-581: The Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. The band continued to tour for the next couple of years. 1996 saw

646-497: The album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes , Shawn Colvin , and John Medeski , of Medeski, Martin and Wood , to name a few. Live at the Quick , which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art , successfully captured

680-419: The band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound , another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded

714-521: The bassist for the metal band Nitro . He owns Vix Records, which releases his albums. He wrote the novel The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music . He later released the book's sequel, The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues, on February 2, 2021. Wooten is the recipient of five Grammy Awards . He won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and

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748-524: The camps. Wooten is most often seen playing Fodera basses, of which he has a signature model. His most famous Fodera, a 1983 Monarch Deluxe he refers to as "number 1," sports a Kahler Tremolo System model 2400 bridge. Fodera's "Yin Yang" basses (co-designed by and created for Wooten) incorporates the Yin Yang symbol —which Wooten uses in various media—as a focal point of the top's design and construction. The symbol

782-532: The country music venue at Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1987, he traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit friends that he made at the theme park. One of them was a studio engineer who introduced him to Béla Fleck , with whom he has often collaborated. In 2000, Wooten created a music program called Bass/Nature camp that was expanded into Victor Wooten's Center for Music and Nature and includes all instruments. His camps are at Wooten Woods,

816-596: The group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After

850-461: The mix. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band . In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon , France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool . It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as

884-761: The name from the word 'mutation', the Mu'tet reflects Coffin's philosophy that music must change and mutate in order to evolve. Coffin has also worked with Jeff Babko, Will Lee , Keith Carlock , Nir Felder , Dave Liebman , Randy Brecker , Grace Kelly , Nate Smith , Cory Wong , Roy "Futureman" Wooten , Victor Wooten , Chester Thompson , Keb' Mo' , R.A.P Ferreira , Tony Hall , MonoNeon , Michael League , Robben Ford , Bill Evans , Daru Jones , Kris Myers , Marcus King , Derek Brown , Jeff Sipe , Charlie Peacock , Vinnie Colaiuta , Everyone Orchestra , R. Prasanna , Jonathan Scales , and JD Souther . Coffin has given over 300 music clinics at colleges, universities, and other schools both nationally and internationally. He

918-409: The release of the live album Live Art , featuring recordings made over a four-year touring period which also saw the core Flecktones trio (plus, on some tunes, Levy) collaborating with assorted jazz and bluegrass musicians including Sam Bush , Branford Marsalis , Chick Corea , and Bruce Hornsby . In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to

952-446: The sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land . As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land , the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become

986-521: The tutelage of Arthur Lagassee, the band director for the district. For two summers during the 1980s he attended the Summer Youth Music School at the University of New Hampshire which he credits for his love for mentoring young musicians. In 1983, after graduating from Spaulding High School in Rochester, New Hampshire , he attended the University of New Hampshire for two years. He studied at

1020-414: Was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit , claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post

1054-522: Was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of The Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-578: Was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. The band performed initially at jazz festivals, as well as with soul singer Stevie Wonder , blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt , and the Christian a cappella group Take 6 . Followers of the Grateful Dead took note. The band's debut album, Béla Fleck and

1122-461: Was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and " The Ballad of Jed Clampett ". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Roy Wooten called himself "Future Man" and played drumitar, an instrument which he'd developed by linking a customised SynthAxe guitar synthesizer controller to drum sounds. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy. The first Flecktones video, "Sinister Minister",

1156-473: Was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. He had intended to be in the band temporarily, he became a permanent replacement when Moore died from his injuries. He continued Moore's work on the band's album Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King . Since the late 1990s Coffin has been recording and touring with his band, The Mu'tet. He has released some of the band's albums on his label, Ear Up Records. Taking

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