Over the past half-century, Béla Fleck has exploded the parameters of the banjo, taking his staggering musicality to inspired blends of bluegrass, fusion, folk, jazz, classical, global music and more. In the process he’s won 19 Grammy Awards and rightfully earned a reputation as one of our most brilliant instrumentalists.

To be sure, his new all-star trio with harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez is nothing less, featuring instrumentation that might safely be called uncommon.

If you’re already familiar with Fleck — the genre-blurring virtuoso has done more to expand the possibilities of the banjo than any other player in the instrument’s history. To wit: last year, he released an inspired reimagining of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Fleck has also been the banjo’s most thoughtful advocate and ambassador, and his acclaimed 2008 documentary Throw Down Your Heart and its accompanying soundtrack celebrated the instrument’s unsung African roots. Still, many fans would argue that Fleck’s greatest achievement is the Flecktones, another band of brilliant improvising musicians with an unusual format. (To start, their percussionist, Roy “Future Man” Wooten, plays an original invention called the Drumitar.) 

This new trio, Fleck says, “kind of reminds me of the early days of the Flecktones, when audiences would go, ‘How is this supposed to work?’” For both groups, it turns out, the answer is: extraordinarily well. 

It helps that Castañeda and Sánchez are two of the most gifted musicians of their generation. The harpist hails from Bogotá, Colombia, and has led his own bands in addition to sharing projects with such masters as Hiromi, Paquito D’Rivera and Grégoire Maret. Other collaborators have included Paco de Lucía, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Marcus Miller and John Scofield. For the hit Disney film Encanto, he acted as a music consultant and contributed to the soundtrack. “His musical vision is so invigorating,” wrote NPR, whose hit web series Tiny Desk Concert showcased Castañeda in 2010. 

Five-time Grammy-winner Sánchez grew up in Mexico City and built a reputation as one of the great jazz drummers through his work with guitarist Pat Metheny. He’s also been a visionary bandleader, helming progressive groups like Bad Hombre, and collaborated with Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Charlie Haden, Michael Brecker and other giants. His Golden Globe-nominated drum-set score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2014 film Birdman earned him renown far outside the jazz world.

Fleck recalls first hearing about Castañeda nearly a decade ago, from the Flecktone and bass legend Victor Wooten. Castañeda “was one of those guys that seemed like he fit in the extended Flecktones family — weirdos like us,” Fleck says with a laugh. “People like Edmar would sort of show up in Victor’s life, as they would in mine. I want to know who the special people are on different instruments, and I tend to find people to collaborate with who are the only person who plays that way.” The two eventually met, in Nashville, and began jamming, including one auspicious session in New York’s Riverside Park. When Fleck was invited to perform at the acclaimed Big Ears Festival in 2019, he thought, why not play duo with Edmar?

The set, held at a cathedral in Knoxville, Tenn., was a rousing success. (It was also recorded by NPR’s Jazz Night in America and remains available online.) “What I hadn’t realized,” Fleck says, “is what a great performer Edmar is, as well as being a great musician. The Big Ears audience that hadn’t heard him before were basically blown away, flipping out. At the end of this set, people were going ballistic.” 

Enter Sánchez, whom Fleck had met in India, when the two performed as part of a tribute to tabla master Alla Rakha, organized by his son and protégé Zakir Hussain. “Meeting him through Zakir,” Fleck says, “it was like we were already friends before we even played any music. When we started working together, it was like we’d already worked together for 20 years. We played on one or two tunes at that show, and I thought, ‘Wow, this might be one of the easiest drummers I’ve ever played with. Everything he does shapes the music so well. And the time is so perfect; I don’t have to worry about it. He takes care of it. And I feel free.’

“I connect with people over rhythm,” Fleck continues. “That’s probably the thing that turns on my motor the most. And so, playing with Edmar, I’m surprised that I can play bluegrass. The rhythm is so compelling between Antonio and Edmar that I can roll, like on a bluegrass song, and have it sound perfectly natural.”

Adds Sánchez, “Béla’s playing, as we all know, is incredibly virtuosic. But his rhythm is impeccable. I’ve developed a deep sense of subdivisions and time, so interacting with a player of Béla’s caliber was effortless.” 

In 2018, Dave Matthews invited Fleck to open for him in Mexico, so the banjoist asked Sánchez to join him in a fairly loose, spontaneous banjo/bass/drums set. Sánchez returned the favor, asking Fleck to record duets with him in New York for a new project, which got Fleck thinking about Edmar. “So we recorded the duo a bit,” Fleck recalls, “and then Edmar came and we set up and just jammed and recorded.” The interplay, the communication, the camaraderie — all of it was astounding. “That session,” Fleck explains, “was the impetus to say, ‘Hey, let’s figure out how to really do this.’” 

Despite the surplus of virtuosity among the trio, assembling a repertoire came with challenges. Certain melodic and harmonic moves that are manageable on banjo definitely are not on the harp, and vice versa, so Fleck and Castañeda wrote together in addition to bringing in their own pieces. Sánchez contributed original music too, testing out the viability of his work using composition software before showing it to his bandmates. In the end, the composition process was intensely collaborative, ensuring that each piece offered an orchestral scope despite the unusual instrumentation. 

In September 2024, during a weeklong run at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Greenwich Village, the trio was able fully explore this music, ironing out the kinks and pushing the improvisational rapport to new heights. “Each night at the Blue Note felt like an adventure,” says Castañeda, “and it was special to see the audience experience the music’s evolution.”

Or as Fleck puts it, “We were hanging on for dear life. Things were going right, things were going wrong — everything was happening.”

By the run’s end, the trio had locked into a sort of telepathy, as well as a system for covering all the necessary musical ground. “I play the groove with my left hand with Antonio,” says Castañeda, “while at the same time I play melodies and harmonies with my right hand and with Béla — a very fun challenge that makes a unique and powerful trio.”

“Edmar has quite a bit of responsibility in this particular case,” Sánchez adds, “because he functions as the harmony and the bass.” Indeed, Castañeda sends the bottom frequencies of his harp through a proper bass rig onstage, so the low end is always present. The drummer goes on to call Castañeda “the glue between the banjo and the drums.”

By design, Fleck booked recording dates for the trio after the material had been played again and again in the Blue Note run — to avoid making one of those “apologetic jazz records,” he chuckles, “where you say, ‘God, don’t listen to the record — we’re so much better now.’”  

The banjoist is looking forward to releasing these recordings, and to exploring more with the band live. “I think we could have some fun being out there on the festival circuit,” he says, “and doing this crazy band in some nice places.”

Fleck is also excited by the prospect of focusing again on a tight, jazz-leaning, improvisation-focused unit, after devoting so much of his career of late to classical and bluegrass projects, and to the duo he shares with his wife, Abigail Washburn. 

“I’m not saying this will be the Flecktones,” says Fleck. “That is such a particular, unique thing. But there are similarities in the way it evolved very naturally, kind of falling in my lap without a big plan. I wasn’t trying to start a band when the Flecktones happened. But people just started showing up in my life who were very hard to ignore.”