Bela Fleck 2008 (1st Jazz Banjoist?)

This video from 2008 is a short segment where Bela Fleck describes how "When I came on the scene there was basically 3 ways of playing the banjo. One was Earl Scruggs, which was (plays short lick) and he had positions (plays a couple) and that was a a very simplified version of the Scruggs Style, and there was another guy named Don Reno who did almost a guitar kind of position kind of playing that sounded like this out of those same positions (plays Follow the Leader)." He tells how he was the first 5-string banjo player to develop modes all up and down the neck in every key explaining, "so what nobody had really done was learn to just scratch out just the modes, just like anyone would really learn on another instrument but nobody had approached that, so I just figured them out all up and down the neck in every key, and that was sort of the leap that I made in the '70's was figuring out how to do that on a bluegrass banjo, it was basically coming out of Don Reno's style and playing sort of a folk style and refining it into a way to play the whole neck of the banjo, and that gave me the tools to play in all the different keys and all the other stuff."
This segment is located at 1:22:22 in an interview from Dec. 20, 2008 which can be seen in it's entirety here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S42ZXEYsulU&feature=related

Also of interest from 1992:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/arts/l-jazz-banjoists-plucking-a-tender-cho...

JAZZ BANJOISTS; Plucking A Tender Chord
Published: June 28, 1992

To the Editor:

John Milward's article "Rich and Famous? Take a Lesson Anyway" [ June 7 ] offered an informative look at the need for professionals to continue their own artistic development. But I am troubled by a statement attributed to Bela Fleck.

Mr. Milward quotes Mr. Fleck as saying, "I was trying to learn how to play jazz, and there was no method for playing jazz on the banjo because it hadn't been done before." This statement does a disservice to many of us who play jazz on the five-string banjo. There has long been a culture of bluegrass-based musicians who were absorbing the work of jazz musicians, from King Oliver to Herbie Hancock to Ornette Coleman. While there is no standard method for learning to play jazz on the five-string banjo, banjoists were certainly exploring the jazz idiom as well, and many have continued to study jazz throughout their careers.

I find it hard to believe these words came from someone who was aware of the music of Pat Cloud, Bill Keith and Peter Schwimmer and especially that of his teacher, Tony Trischka, who had recorded several albums long before Bela took up the formal study of jazz improvisation. MARTIN CUTLER Brooklyn

Category:

Music

Tags:

• banjo scales
• banjo modes
• banjo keys