Banjo vertuoso Béla Fleck, having already pioneered and deeply explored the intersections of bluegrass, jazz and pop in a 20-year recording career, in 2001 recorded a double Grammy winning disc of “classical” music, Perpetual Motion. It leaned heavily to Baroque composers, particularly Bach, Scarlatti and Paganini, but also included some Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Chopin. Some pieces were solo, others had backup from a handful of musicians, including double bassist Edgar Meyer, who arranged all of the pieces with Fleck.
Fleck and Meyer, who have collaborated on many projects over the years, did a short tour together in 2003, which was the source of the 16 tracks on the Music For Two CD and the 40-minute DVD, Obstinato. Together, they capture the hard work this duo puts into making their particular brand of musical magic.
The CD is a balanced menu of works by either Fleck or Meyer or both, with a handful of Bach exercises, a modernist Henry Eccles piece in two parts, and a Miles Davis cover. It opens with Fleck’s composition “Bug Tussle,” which sets the tone for the disc. Two ideas, one a Baroque-like counterpoint and the other a jaunty jazzgrass duet, tussle for dominance before combining in a smashing conclusion.
In a similar vein is “Pile Up,” a joint composition that delves into newgrass and progressive rock, full of pentatonic riffs and a stuttering time signature that I still can’t quite make out. Each musician puts on an impressive display of his skills, with Fleck pouring out a prodigious picking display, followed by a Zappa-esque thundering ride on the bowed bass from Meyer, before it all drops back into the light-hearted newgrass theme of the opening section. Davis’ “Solar” is a big crowd-pleaser done at about double the tempo as the original, these two trading off the lead in a rapid-fire enfillade of notes. The witty, lighthearted “Wrong Number” incorporates the sound of a ringing phone (a big no-no in the concert hall, of course), which signals the changes in the piece, from rhythmic counterpoint to modernist dissonance to lightly swinging jazz riffs. Fleck gets to demonstrate some traditional bluegrass rolls over Meyer’s jazzy thrumming bass line on Béla’s “The One I Left Behind.” Each takes a solo turn, Fleck on the shimmering “The Lake Effect,” Meyer on the melodic, 7/8 time “Wishful Thinking.”
The classical bits end up seeming like mostly filler here, although the Bach compositions especially benefit from thoughtful arrangements that make it seem they were created with these two instruments in mind. Fleck doesn’t quite seem to connect with Meyer on the Eccles sonata, playing the rhythmic accompaniment with a cool detachment as Meyer goes to town on the allegro movement.
But there’s no such problem on the three pieces that form the emotional core of Music For Two.* “Palmyra” starts with Meyer on the piano, a dark and brooding section giving way to an old-fashioned hoedown that sounds like something Copland might have scored, with its playful blend of folk and jazz styles. Meyer in particular puts on a dazzling display of bass virtuosity, soaring and swooping over and around the banjo’s melody line. “Woolly Mammoth” leads off with a sedate, canon-like repetitive melody that quickly gives way to a brilliant and energetic exploration of jazz and bluegrass. It whipsaws back and forth from simple contrapuntal sections to jazz sections, dense with notes and textures as the two musicians trade riffs, rhythmic backing and melody lines. This is some of the most exciting instrumental music I’ve heard in quite some time.
Finally, there’s Meyer’s deceptively simple “Canon,” a round for bass and banjo played in a demanding 15/8 time signature, combining stately classical lines with dazzling jazzy sections that feel improvised but are in reality tightly scripted. The Obstinato DVD tells the story of the creation of this piece, which the two musicians rehearsed and brought to life while on their brief tour of the American South and Midwest. “Obstinato,” of course, is a wordplay on the Italian musical term “ostinato,” and the English word “obstinate,” which describes the stubborn state of mind required to bring this difficult piece to fruition.
The film, directed and produced by Fleck’s brother Sascha Paladino, follows the two on their tour, wowing audiences night after night, and then retiring to a series of hotel rooms and rehearsal spaces to work on the “Canon.” The more mercurial Fleck and stolid, single-minded Meyer sometimes grate on each other’s nerves as they put up with enforced companionship and hour after hour of rehearsal. The piece finally comes together in a triumphant moment on the final night of the tour, only the third time they’ve attempted it before an audience and the first time they make it all the way through.
This short film is an engaging portrait of a musical partnership, showing the two musicians, warts and all, as they labor to make their vision a reality. Music For Two and Obstinato are a sterling example of how to combine both media into a package in which each part complements the other.
(Sony CD and DVD, 2004)
