Béla Fleck & the Flecktones
We started our band in 1988, and 25 years later we still love to play together. In the first 15 years we never took a year off, so now we take them off regularly to do other projects, but we still come back together every few years – to share our musical energy, history, and friendship. Over the years there have been several changes but the constant has been Victor Lemonte Wooten on bass, Future Man on drumitar, and myself on banjo. The combo of the 3 of us, usually (but not always) including a powerful 4rth musical energy makes it ‘the Flecktones’, at least to me.
Howard Levy completed the original lineup back in 1988 at our inauguration and for our first three albums. He left the band back in 1993, and we continued on as trio. (Three Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest) We had several interim players – quite notably Sam Bush and Paul McCandless. Then we settled in with Jeff Coffin for a good long haul – 14 years, I believe.
During one of our extended off periods, Dave Mathews offered Jeff the chance to fill the position sadly vacated from The Dave Mathews Band by Leroi Moore’s untimely death. We are proud of Jeff and what he’s brought to the DMB, and we do love those guys.
So when we decided to take the flecktones out again in 2011/2012 we got in touch with Howard Levy to see if he might enjoy a one year visit to Flecktones Past. But we really wanted it to be Flecktones Present, so we decided to create a new set of material and recorded Rocket Science. It was a wonderful year together with Howard.
Now we’re in a holding pattern, til the next time we crank the band up again.