Another Rick Beato direction here. I knew Mr. Fleck was astounding, but...this...is...unbelievable. It's going on my iPad playlist with GGershwin's piano roll, the first Paul Whiteman recording, Alec Templeton (despite Kostalanetz's orchestra), Dudley Moore's Hollywood Bowl performance (still my go-to fave), Jose Iturbi, Andre Previn, Michel Legrand, and the Residents. I'm sure there are a couple of others, but I don't remember. A classically trained and brilliantly audiially knowledgeable friend of mine, who died in 1987, said that he had heard so many versions of RiB that he never wanted to hear it by anybody ever again. But I think Rolly would have nevertheless been astounded by this performance. Cheers, JRC...I hope this gets to your post-earthly ears. And thank you, Bela Fleck, for all the time it must have taken you to get here.
I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in concert in Omaha a few days after Earl Scruggs died. Bela apologized for getting to Omaha just in time after attending the funeral. At a break, he sat down with his banjo (and none of the band), said "i'd like to play you some Earl Scruggs stuff" and just killed it with about 5 minutes of Earl Scruggs tunes. You could hear a pin drop in the house. Effortless, perfect, fantastic.
Back in 1945 the movie Rhapsody in Blue premiered. Right in the middle of the orchestra sat a banjo player. I thought it interesting that all these years later the banjo would be brought to the forefront as the lead instrument. Thank you Mr Fleck.
What a challenge to take on this piece. and on a fretted instrument. i think Gershwin threw everything but the kitchen sink into this composition. that it all hangs together elevates blues into another dimension. Bela captures the voice of this composer on a banjo. yo
This is why I tell anyone who will listen that Bela Fleck is one of the greatest musicians that ever lived. He is Frank Zappa, Earl Scruggs and George Gershwin all rolled into one.
Indeed I have thought this for a long time. It's that mastery of technique (and then some!) and the ability to improvise melodic lines and harmony of great beauty and originality.
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is named for Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Leoš Janáček. Even the name is crazy musically. He is the essence of musical perfection.
Thank you for filming and posting this..❤ Wolftrap is, acoustically speaking, one of my favorite venues in the region.. 🎶😌🎶 ( I have not been to Strathmore yet..).. This is amazing.. Again, thank you for posting this.. 😊🎶👍
A tour de force of musical erudition,, lots and lots of hard work, sheer talent and more hard work. The Segovia of the 5-string for sure, because you know he got it from the score and transcribed it for banjo, carefully curating what could and could not be played on his instrument and how to make it all work. Astonishing that anyone has seen fit to do this, let along actually accomplishing it. ♥🔥🔥🔥♥♥
Around the same time for me. I was running a record store (well, CD/Tape) - being a musician myself I knew a few things about what was out there. An old gent comes in and asks if i have any Bela Fleck. I had taken over the store, didn't even have a handle on everything on the shelf. What's he play, I ask. The gent replies "banjo", and I immediately say, "oh, bluegrass!". The gent says, "no, Jazz". Huh?? So we saunter over to the jazz section, find some Fleck, with the Flecktones. The guy makes a purchase (have a nice day!) - when he leaves I crack open a tape and pop it in the store system. Holy crap - how was I not aware of this guy?!? Been a huge fan ever since.
ruclips.net/video/QIU8V-ot-CE/видео.htmlsi=cS348lY-pZkV5nn6 A few of us banjo players have tried Rhapsody in Blue. Hope you also enjoy a bit of my version...
I saw Larry Coryell play this piece on a Les Paul, 1989, Sam's Jam's, Ferndale, Mi. This is tough enough for a pianist, but on a guitar or a banjo ??? Good Lord !!!
First heard Bela with the New Grass Revival who were opening for the Dead NYE show on 12/31/1989. Followed him solo, Flecktones, etc. ever since - lucky to have seen him for years at the Telluride Music & Bluegrass festival in various configurations. He's quite remarkable. I love Melissa Porter's comment below - "He is one fearless, talented musical explorer. Long may he sail."
Even us amatuer musicians get a feel for how certain things / tricks are easy to pull off on instrument A and IMPOSSIBLE to pull off on instrument B. You then realize that music can be composed around those instrument specific nuances. Watching a piece composed for solo piano with ORCHESTRA accompaniment musically re-engineered for an instrument completely dissimilar to anything the work was originally composed for is mind blowing.
The banjo is so interesting because of how it has different registers as you go up the neck from the lower to the higher notes, and the tuning lets you invert chords in different places. Lots of great banjo music has variations of the theme/tune in the different registers with the inverted chords, but there is often a gap between them. Bela is able to go up and down the neck seamlessly between the registers and chord inversions so that the music is continuous. And on only 5 strings with that shorter 5th string that has to be tuned to accomodate its short length, meaning some notes are not present at all, and some just repeat the notes on other strings. Blows my mind as a (not NEARLY so good) banjo player. Wow!
The "Segovia" of the 5 String Banjo. That's a hard tune to listen to all the way through, even when Leonard Bernstein is playing it on that Great Baldwin he had, but Bella is just Mesmerizing. A fellow Banjo player and friend of mine Russ Knickerson once played me a tape of Bella playing Beethoven's Fifth and it was an absolute Riot.
I didn't get to meet him since he died a couple years before I was born but my maternal grandfather played the banjo. I'm guessing he couldn't do this stuff 🤨😐
Musicality that transcends the instrument. Not meant to diminish the Banjo, it's just saying what he is playing goes beyond any typical expectations of his chosen instrument . Rarified musicians that can do this- Toots Thielmann "transcended" the Harmonica. Jeff Beck transcended the guitar.
@@mguerramd I attended many live concerts as I was growing up. Rude audiences are the bane of good music. There is no excuse for interfering with other people's enjoyment of a performance THEY CAME FOR.
@@WCM1945 the problem is you can’t do anything about it. It’s awful but you just have to put up with it. I almost killed a lady at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, she was sitting there, unwrapping cellophane, wrapped candies the entire Beethoven concert. I was so ticked off. I was about to blow a gasket. After that I decided to change my mind and just say well there’s nothing I can do about it.
Concert? ....at a concert you sit down, shut the h---- up and listen so as not to bother the people around you. If you want to walk around drink adult beverages and chat , go to the mall or something. I cannot believe the conversation amidst all the aimless wandering and movement.
You have to be really really , REALLE good to waste your time on doing more than a proof of concept... Fleck is a master,. Professional banjo ( other string players) players could manage this. Mere mortals would spend too much of their lives with no promise of success. And it doesn't wound good :-(. I think Josh Turner could do this.ruclips.net/video/lWpmALY8Z_s/видео.html He does ton's of covers! Well, I really enjoy everything he does... ) It is wonderful trick!!! Go Fleck!!!
This is why I don't go to concerts anymore...not in years. I could hear women cackling throughput this entire piece. In the presence of absolute greatness and they still can't shut up. I noticed the EXACT SAME THING in a video of Eric Johnson...women simply can't stop talking...ever. For the guys reading this, please do the world a favor and leave your women home when you go out for culture like a Bela concert. I'd really love to attend things like this but I'd end up in jail. I simply don't tolerate this inconsiderate BS and I'm not polite or gentle about it. If I paid my hard-earned money for a ticket, I'm going to enjoy the performance. Listening to the cackling isn't enjoyable.
You can’t escape it, you have to just accept it. Worse yet are the people who sit there the entire time unwrapping cellophane wrapped candies! I almost killed a lady once at the Majestic in San Antonio.
It's art, we all get to disagree, but I will say, I marvelled at his jazz-like improvisations around the main theme. He could have made it sound more like the 'original', but if you look through a jazz-ish lens (in my opinion) it's highly accomplished. Nevertheless, what do I know? No criticism implied, merely a different take; good luck to you.
I respectfully and gently disagree: I thought it worked remarkably well. We're missing the orchestra, of course, but Rhapsody in Blue works as a solo piano piece, so why not on a banjo? It's Gershwin either way, so I can't help but love it. And it was played masterfully.
An actual multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and music educator, disagrees with you. You might check your aesthetic sensibilities. 🤷♂️ ruclips.net/video/oRtuVAuxYWs/видео.htmlsi=eweZZAitRGCky2K4
It’s amazing that anyone can play this Banjo song on the piano
Rick Beato told me about this.
Awesome.
Me too
Rick sent me 😊
Me too!
Me too! Thanks Rick!
Another Rick Beato direction here. I knew Mr. Fleck was astounding, but...this...is...unbelievable. It's going on my iPad playlist with GGershwin's piano roll, the first Paul Whiteman recording, Alec Templeton (despite Kostalanetz's orchestra), Dudley Moore's Hollywood Bowl performance (still my go-to fave), Jose Iturbi, Andre Previn, Michel Legrand, and the Residents. I'm sure there are a couple of others, but I don't remember.
A classically trained and brilliantly audiially knowledgeable friend of mine, who died in 1987, said that he had heard so many versions of RiB that he never wanted to hear it by anybody ever again. But I think Rolly would have nevertheless been astounded by this performance. Cheers, JRC...I hope this gets to your post-earthly ears. And thank you, Bela Fleck, for all the time it must have taken you to get here.
I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in concert in Omaha a few days after Earl Scruggs died. Bela apologized for getting to Omaha just in time after attending the funeral. At a break, he sat down with his banjo (and none of the band), said "i'd like to play you some Earl Scruggs stuff" and just killed it with about 5 minutes of Earl Scruggs tunes. You could hear a pin drop in the house. Effortless, perfect, fantastic.
The sheer audacity! How can you not love this man. His virtuosity brings tears of joy to me. What an inspiration!
And he's the nicest, most unpretentious person you could meet. And he's a total banjo nerd.
Back in 1945 the movie Rhapsody in Blue premiered.
Right in the middle of the orchestra sat a banjo player. I thought it interesting that all these years later the banjo would be brought to the forefront as the lead instrument.
Thank you Mr Fleck.
He played that flawlessly. How in the world....??? What a blessing! Thanks for the share!!
There's only one Bela. He is one fearless, talented musical explorer. Long may he sail.
Banjo is fitting for this most American of symphonies
And a banjo master from New York City its perfect interpreter.
What a challenge to take on this piece. and on a fretted instrument. i think Gershwin threw everything but the kitchen sink into this composition. that it all hangs together elevates blues into another dimension. Bela captures the voice of this composer on a banjo. yo
This is why I tell anyone who will listen that Bela Fleck is one of the greatest musicians that ever lived. He is Frank Zappa, Earl Scruggs and George Gershwin all rolled into one.
There's best in a venue and then there is just, the best
Indeed I have thought this for a long time. It's that mastery of technique (and then some!) and the ability to improvise melodic lines and harmony of great beauty and originality.
He can play bluegrass, rock, jazz fusion, classical and just about anything else. And he plays them all at an insanely high level.
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is named for Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Leoš Janáček. Even the name is crazy musically. He is the essence of musical perfection.
Can't wait to see him do this in Nashville with the symphony orchestra on September 9th!
Thank you for filming and posting this..❤ Wolftrap is, acoustically speaking, one of my favorite venues in the region.. 🎶😌🎶 ( I have not been to Strathmore yet..)..
This is amazing.. Again, thank you for posting this.. 😊🎶👍
A tour de force of musical erudition,, lots and lots of hard work, sheer talent and more hard work. The Segovia of the 5-string for sure, because you know he got it from the score and transcribed it for banjo, carefully curating what could and could not be played on his instrument and how to make it all work. Astonishing that anyone has seen fit to do this, let along actually accomplishing it. ♥🔥🔥🔥♥♥
Blew me away with this cover opening for Shakti @ Keswick Theater PA last week! Thanks for posting!
It’s hard to comprehend such mastery of an instrument
I was at this concert! So glad you posted this
I was lucky enough to find Bela in early, 1992 but this performance is mind boggling. How the hell can he do that, on a banjo.
Around the same time for me. I was running a record store (well, CD/Tape) - being a musician myself I knew a few things about what was out there. An old gent comes in and asks if i have any Bela Fleck. I had taken over the store, didn't even have a handle on everything on the shelf.
What's he play, I ask. The gent replies "banjo", and I immediately say, "oh, bluegrass!". The gent says, "no, Jazz". Huh?? So we saunter over to the jazz section, find some Fleck, with the Flecktones. The guy makes a purchase (have a nice day!) - when he leaves I crack open a tape and pop it in the store system. Holy crap - how was I not aware of this guy?!? Been a huge fan ever since.
He started learning this back in his high school days.
ruclips.net/video/QIU8V-ot-CE/видео.htmlsi=cS348lY-pZkV5nn6
A few of us banjo players have tried Rhapsody in Blue. Hope you also enjoy a bit of my version...
Bravo Bela!! And, big Thank you's!! Steve for sharing this jem!!
I saw Larry Coryell play this piece on a Les Paul, 1989, Sam's Jam's, Ferndale, Mi.
This is tough enough for a pianist, but on a guitar or a banjo ???
Good Lord !!!
First heard Bela with the New Grass Revival who were opening for the Dead NYE show on 12/31/1989. Followed him solo, Flecktones, etc. ever since - lucky to have seen him for years at the Telluride Music & Bluegrass festival in various configurations. He's quite remarkable. I love Melissa Porter's comment below - "He is one fearless, talented musical explorer. Long may he sail."
Increíble.
Bravo! I really need to try getting this onto plectrum or tenor (if memory serves, Gershwin’s original score calls for tenor banjo).
Thank you for posting this.
Just Wonderful Bela!!!
Absolutely incredible! Love it!
Absolutely stunning...
Even us amatuer musicians get a feel for how certain things / tricks are easy to pull off on instrument A and IMPOSSIBLE to pull off on instrument B. You then realize that music can be composed around those instrument specific nuances. Watching a piece composed for solo piano with ORCHESTRA accompaniment musically re-engineered for an instrument completely dissimilar to anything the work was originally composed for is mind blowing.
Amazing show. Didn’t know what expect. Shakti outstanding as well.
National Treasure 😇
BELA COMO SIEMPRE SORPRENDIÉNDONOS CON SU GENIALIDAD!! LARGA VIDA MAESTRO!!...
That is an extraordinary performance
Wow! Fantastic work!
Why can't people just be silent ?
They're in the presence of greatness and they want to sit and talk ?
Idiocracy.
Extraordinaire !!!!! C'est monstrueux !!!
GENIUS ❤❤❤
The Mozart of the banjo - A genius
Tnx Steve.
Bela's amazing.
That was insanely good!
I'm speechless👏👏👏👏
Bravo!
This is amazing. Not many people know that there is a banjo in the original score of Rhapsody in Blue!
The banjo is so interesting because of how it has different registers as you go up the neck from the lower to the higher notes, and the tuning lets you invert chords in different places. Lots of great banjo music has variations of the theme/tune in the different registers with the inverted chords, but there is often a gap between them. Bela is able to go up and down the neck seamlessly between the registers and chord inversions so that the music is continuous. And on only 5 strings with that shorter 5th string that has to be tuned to accomodate its short length, meaning some notes are not present at all, and some just repeat the notes on other strings. Blows my mind as a (not NEARLY so good) banjo player. Wow!
bro who is actually talking during this, sounds like some people having a conversation. So good. Never thought i would enjoy the banjo this much
Is that a banjo or an orchestra! Unreal 😮👏🏻
YES!!
The "Segovia" of the 5 String Banjo. That's a hard tune to listen to all the way through, even when Leonard Bernstein is playing it on that Great Baldwin he had, but Bella is just Mesmerizing.
A fellow Banjo player and friend of mine Russ Knickerson once played me a tape of Bella playing Beethoven's Fifth and it was an absolute Riot.
I don’t find rhapsody hard to listen to
Bela. Bay-la. Bella is a woman’s name, as in Bella Abzug.
Alexa, how does one reach through the internet and slap someone in a recording that has already been made?
What a master
Bravo Maestro!
Béla is the best!
The Bela Noodles Tour - I mean this is as the highest praise.
Holy smokes
Pure banjo -
This is the kind of thing virtuosos do to challenge themselves.
Well, just when you think you've seen everything......
I didn't get to meet him since he died a couple years before I was born but my maternal grandfather played the banjo.
I'm guessing he couldn't do this stuff 🤨😐
7:35 the famous theme starts
Musicality that transcends the instrument. Not meant to diminish the Banjo, it's just saying what he is playing goes beyond any typical expectations of his chosen instrument .
Rarified musicians that can do this- Toots Thielmann "transcended" the Harmonica. Jeff Beck transcended the guitar.
If only there was a decent recording of this…🤔
If only the audience wasn't talking over it like it's a cocktail party.
I have to believe that he’ll record it for posterity after all the work put into figuring it out on banjo. At least, let’s hope so!
480p?????
Obviously home video. People kept getting in the way. I tried that a few times and finally realized how incredibly rude and thoughtless people can be.
Amazing player and performance!!
I hear a lot of talking from the audience while he plays. I find that frustrating.
That’s a live performance. Adds to it in my opinion.
@@mguerramd I attended many live concerts as I was growing up. Rude audiences are the bane of good music. There is no excuse for interfering with other people's enjoyment of a performance THEY CAME FOR.
@@WCM1945 the problem is you can’t do anything about it. It’s awful but you just have to put up with it. I almost killed a lady at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, she was sitting there, unwrapping cellophane, wrapped candies the entire Beethoven concert. I was so ticked off. I was about to blow a gasket. After that I decided to change my mind and just say well there’s nothing I can do about it.
😂 Well said!
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
good song but hard to dace too. I give it an eleven
Rick Beato brought me here.
Me too
If there’s a better banjo player to ever live please tell me who it is
I would suggest Noam Pikelny, but not better, he's standing on Bela's shoulders...
Great playing but all the background noise just ruins it.
Too bad there's not A board tape.
imagine if he only flys united
or refuses to fly united
Concert? ....at a concert you sit down, shut the h---- up and listen so as not to bother the people around you. If you want to walk around drink adult beverages and chat , go to the mall or something. I cannot believe the conversation amidst all the aimless wandering and movement.
Too many people treat a concert as though it was just a piano bar.
Egad.
I saw his classical stuff live in Glasgow 4 years ago, it was unlistenable, i wish hed played this
Well. That is virtuosity. Banjo is not a favorite though.
We appreciate your patience.
AS amazing as this is. the banjo just isn't a piano.
You have to be really really , REALLE good to waste your time on doing more than a proof of concept... Fleck is a master,. Professional banjo ( other string players) players could manage this. Mere mortals would spend too much of their lives with no promise of success. And it doesn't wound good :-(. I think Josh Turner could do this.ruclips.net/video/lWpmALY8Z_s/видео.html He does ton's of covers! Well, I really enjoy everything he does... )
It is wonderful trick!!! Go Fleck!!!
This is why I don't go to concerts anymore...not in years. I could hear women cackling throughput this entire piece. In the presence of absolute greatness and they still can't shut up. I noticed the EXACT SAME THING in a video of Eric Johnson...women simply can't stop talking...ever.
For the guys reading this, please do the world a favor and leave your women home when you go out for culture like a Bela concert. I'd really love to attend things like this but I'd end up in jail. I simply don't tolerate this inconsiderate BS and I'm not polite or gentle about it. If I paid my hard-earned money for a ticket, I'm going to enjoy the performance. Listening to the cackling isn't enjoyable.
Interesting that you focus on the women talking when I can clearly hear lots of men talking as well.
You can’t escape it, you have to just accept it. Worse yet are the people who sit there the entire time unwrapping cellophane wrapped candies! I almost killed a lady once at the Majestic in San Antonio.
the absolute ignorance of this audience is also mind boggling.
Who in the audience, a bunch of fifth-graders??? Yak, yak, yak...
THEY SHOULDN'T BE THERE
Doesn't work on the banjo
It's art, we all get to disagree, but I will say, I marvelled at his jazz-like improvisations around the main theme. He could have made it sound more like the 'original', but if you look through a jazz-ish lens (in my opinion) it's highly accomplished. Nevertheless, what do I know? No criticism implied, merely a different take; good luck to you.
I respectfully and gently disagree: I thought it worked remarkably well. We're missing the orchestra, of course, but Rhapsody in Blue works as a solo piano piece, so why not on a banjo? It's Gershwin either way, so I can't help but love it. And it was played masterfully.
😂😂😂😂😘
An actual multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and music educator, disagrees with you. You might check your aesthetic sensibilities. 🤷♂️
ruclips.net/video/oRtuVAuxYWs/видео.htmlsi=eweZZAitRGCky2K4
Audience disagrees.
sick