Flecktones!!!!!

Sometime back in the day (circa 1998) a friend introduced me to Bela Fleck and The Flecktones‘ album, Left Of Cool. Being a bass player, I loved Victor Wooten’s bass lines and it was really the first time I had actually heard him play. The music overall kind of clicked with me so I looked up their older albums and snagged them up.

If you know the Left of Cool album, you know that Jeff Coffin killed on the whole recording- and all since. However, if you love the recordings from ’90 to ’92 that were recorded with Howard Levy (piano and Harmonica), you understand how different the Flectones were pre-Coffin. That’s not a good or bad thing. Coffin added a lot when he came on board in ’97 but Levy was a founding member and visions and directions can change in half a decade.

The Flecktones has some great work since Levy left. They also have some not-so-great work. I stopped following them after Little Worlds. They just seemed to get chees(y)(ier) after that and, even though I still keep up with most of their other projects, I lost interest in them as a band. That was until Levy’s return peaked my interest…

Rocket Science is everything a Flecktones album should be -complete with nostalgic art work. I am digging this album hard and, if you are a fan of the band or any of the musicians individually, you will dig it, too. The same mind-bending time signatures and boundary-less musicianship as twenty years ago but with a maturity of interplay that would take other musicians forty years to develop.

They will be touring to support the album and all the dates can be found on the flecktones‘ website. I’ve caught them twice with Coffin and they put on an awesome show so I can’t wait to catch one of these dates. So, GO GET THIS ALBUM!!! Then catch it live!