When Shabazz Palaces played their first ever live show on the 8th day of 2010 it was too early in the year to know how special it would be for live music, but by mid-April I had a pretty good idea 2010 was to be truly great for live music in my life (non-live music was also quite good – click here to see a list of my favorite albums of 2010 . Here are 12 of my favorite live concerts from last year (and one of my favorite dvd packages ever): * [...]
The acclaimed guitarist actually started playing music on the trombone. Follow Owl and Bear on Facebook and Twitter for contests, MP3s, and links that don't make it onto the blog.
You may remember me gushing recently about how much I enjoyed the Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain set while I was at High Sierra ; easily some of the best music I heard all weekend. The trio just stopped by NPR and proceeded to blow their minds as well. "Beyond category." That's what Duke Ellington used to call musicians who were simply the best at what they do. And that's certainly the case for Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain. Individually, they're world-class masters of the [...]
Photo by Justin Ward By 3pm on the second day of High Sierra , I felt like I had already seen a few living legends in the flesh with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band set and Nels Cline's jazz-fusion set to start the day. But I was not prepared at all to see Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer, another absolute highlight of the festival for me. With a sunny and hot afternoon sun beating down on the main stage crowd, this power trio of jazz/folk musicians brought [...]
The High Sierra Music Festival has announced its initial 2010 lineup , including the likes of the Avett Brothers, Ozomatli, Femi Kuti, Bela Fleck, and Dr. Dog among many others. The Northern Cali fest is now in its 20th year and will once again take place over the 4th of July Holiday weekend. The High Sierra folks decided to roll out this year's lineup in an interesting way, releasing this video below, a spoof of Apple's famous product presentations for the iPod and all their other gadgets: [...]
Bela Fleck: Inman Square [ purchase ] Béla Anton Leoš Fleck - named for three modern European composers - had already mastered a vast array of jazz, blues, folk and bluegrass styles at the tender age of 21, despite having only picked up the instrument at 15 while a student at the NYC High School of Art and Music. Two years later, he would join newgrass pioneers New Grass Revival; from there, it was a short journey to becoming perhaps the world's best-known fusion banjo player. [...]
MP3: Béla Fleck - Djorolen (with Oumou Sangaré) This is a special album, the likes of which you won't get to experience many times in a cloistered, Western musical experience. A little bit of backstory: Béla Fleck , everyone's favorite (or least favorite, depending on your tastes and outlook) virtuoso instrumentalist takes a bit of a soul-searching journey. Fleck undertook Throw Down Your Heart , a project to create a movie about his travels and explorations through Africa, searching out the origins of his musical love: the banjo, and [...]
I hope this isn't overkill, since I've been raving here about Bela Fleck's new collaborative album a fair amount recently. But I'm headed out shortly to Seattle's Jazz Alley to see him live, alongside Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate. If you haven't heard the album yet, what are you waiting for? It's a delicious mixture with Fleck lending a light banjo touch to music from a wide variety of African musicians. The family of Tanzanian musical legend Hukwe Zawose is there, as are Afel Bocoum, Vusi Mahlasela, D'Gary, and Oumou Sangare. And others we're not familiar with, such [...]
With the Outside Lands Festival coming up this weekend, we thought it'd be awful helpful to pull together playlists for each day of the festival so you can sample to a bit of each artist before you go. I've tried to find representative and/or live songs for each artist to give a good idea of what you're in store for. With our fancy new media player, you can even hit the little play button next to any song and listen to it as a mix even without downloading anything. Saturday: Tom Petty [...]
MP3: Bela Fleck - Foggy Mountain Special from Bluegrass Sessions V.2 If you are a musician, especially an instrumentalist, you have likely heard the name Bela Fleck. If you are a lover of bluegrass, you have likely heard the name Bela Fleck. If you are a banjo lover, you have likely heard the name Bela Fleck. The list goes on, endlessly. Bela Fleck is one of the most versatile musicians of our time, excelling as both an genre-defying instrumentalist and arranger. His instrument of choice: [...]
It's been a few weeks, so clearly it's time to talk about the Outside Lands Festival again. The folks at APE Concerts have sweetened the pot even further, adding another 10 acts to the already impressive three-day festival. The newest additions are Toots & the Maytals, Rogue Wave, The Walkmen, Mike Gordon, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet feat. Bela Fleck, Vienna Teng, Howlin Rain, Everest, The Dynamites and Carney. MP3s: Toots & the Maytals - Pressure Drop Rogue Wave - Postage Stamp World [...]
Most people think of modern folk music as inherently coupled with the singer-songwriter movement. And it is true that, once upon a time, those who would grow up to become the folk troubadors of their own tomorrows learned their songs the traditional way, at the knees of their elders, that they, too, might pass old songs on to a new generation, and tell their own stories in familiar forms. But the primary instruments of folk music turn out to be more versatile than the folk tradition would suggest. And though many modern [...]
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