Bela Fleck is photographed at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, Ky. on Thursday, March 16, 2006. The 15-time Grammy winner will play with Chick Corea in Vancouver for the first time.BRIAN TIETZ/The Associated Press
Bela Fleck is a legend in his own right, a banjo master who has won an astounding 15 Grammys (and has been nominated in more categories than any musician in Grammy history) and brought the banjo into unlikely arenas – from classical to traditional Indian music to groundbreaking jazz.
So how does he feel when he plays with jazz icon Chick Corea? Surprisingly, a little terrified.
"I like it because it's dangerous for me. He's got so many abilities that are beyond mine, and I'm always on the very edge of my seat trying to hang in there," Mr. Fleck says with a laugh, adding that Mr. Corea's sense of time and rhythm is breathtaking. "And I'm facing my own fears and doubts about whether I can really play jazz or not, so playing with one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time is certainly a good way to test that."
Although the pair have never performed in Vancouver, they've been cultivating their unique chemistry for more than a decade. In 2007, they released the acclaimed album The Enchantment, and have toured together ever since. Last year, they released Two, a double album that captures their genre-bending live performances and spans myriad styles, including rootsy bluegrass, rhythmic rhumba and even children's songs.
The two legends have also been performing classical music, with pieces by Domenico Scarlatti and Henri Dutilleux woven into their set. According to Mr. Fleck – who just premiered his second banjo concerto and has composed for banjo and string quartet – the genre gives them new musical worlds to explore.
"We alternate between different approaches – improvising, playing the lines that are there and adding in a third part to some of the sonata," he says, describing their approach to the Scarlatti piece. "There are lots of ways to be creative with it if you don't look at it as a fixed, dead piece of music, and you look at it as an object to be explored. That's what we've been doing."
And that's just the start of what Mr. Fleck is doing. He's reuniting with his band, the Flecktones, for a tour that will end at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival; creating new music with his wife, Abigail Washburn; working on a project with mandolin star Chris Thile; completing a banjo orchestra project; and spending as much time as he can with his three-year-old son. And of course, Mr. Corea – who was a member of Miles Davis's band and has performed with greats from Cab Calloway to Herbie Hancock – continues to keep him on his musical toes.
"We do a lot of free improvising at the beginning of certain songs, and it's a frightening and exhilarating thing to do with someone like Chick, because when he starts improvising, I want to be in the audience," the self-effacing Mr. Fleck says with a laugh. "But there are definitely nights when I feel like I hung in there, and I did good."