A frenetic jam session with a revved-up audience adding their voices to the music.
The press for Béla Fleck’s new live album describes his band as a multigenerational gang of musical heavy hitters. Having recorded the Grammy-winning My Bluegrass Heart, they came together at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to reproduce that record for a live audience.
Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Sierra Hull, Edgar Meyer, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Billy Strings, Bryan Sutton, Tony Trischka, and Molly Tuttle are all included in the credits, a stellar lineup indeed. It is sometimes the case that a group of bandleaders can fail to gel as a band; everyone is too used to being in charge that they don’t take direction from the person whose name is over the door of the project.
Fleck is well used to managing bands with his many collaborative projects, and with an enthusiastic audience urging him on, opens proceedings with the single Blue Mountain Hop. A nearly seven-minute jam between mandolin, guitar, fiddle and banjo, it sets the tone for the rest of the album. Vertigo follows that with another high-speed jam, which can best be described as “rollicking.”
The night of the recording was one of the worst blizzards to hit Nashville in a long time, but the sold-out crowd made it through the snow. “We somehow managed to take and own the stage that night,” says Fleck. “My amazing peers, friends, and iconic performers really brought the fire.” Sadly, so did the audience, who are far too obvious in the recording. Tolerable in a low-grade bootleg but not on a “proper” album where it was clearly a production choice. As jam follows jam through the twenty tracks of the album, they merge into each other, and even for someone who enjoys bluegrass, the whole thing blurs into one long fretboard-burning session. Even the slower tempo of Hug Point doesn’t really stand out, as by this time even the most bluegrass-friendly listener is frankly bored. Dedication to the AUK audience was the only reason this album was endured to the end.
There are high points. Our Little Secret is slightly less of a show-off fest, and a delightful tune does appear from the solos. The same is true of Hunter’s Moon. The pace does slacken towards the later parts of the album; the players were probably exhausted. There are brilliant performances all through the record, but the most valuable player award must go to bass players Edgar Meyer and Mark Schatz, whose picked and bowed solos are easily the most thoughtful and considered of the show.
Sierra Hull said of the show: “Béla took such a collaborative spirit with this. He has an ability to bring out the best in people, to allow them to bring what they’re good at and let them shine.” You do go away with the feeling that a firmer hand on the arrangements, and including some vocals, would have broken things up. The audience noise during songs is intrusive in places, and Chris Thile sums up the whole enterprise as a “balletic intergenerational relay race.” He’s right. There is great playing, but precious little music on offer here.
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