Bela Fleck, photo courtesy Duke Performances.

Duke Performances brought a jazz concert to a right-sized community venue again on November 8, when the  Carolina Theatre hosted the fabulous quartet of  Bela Fleck and The Marcus Roberts Trio. The main floor was full, and the crowd flowed up into the second balcony to hear banjo master Fleck jamming a delicious, lyrical patois of jazzgrass with pianist Roberts, bassist Rodney Jordan, and percussionist Jason Marsalis.

The jazz band members and Fleck encountered each other first at the Savannah Music Festival. After a jam session, they decided to try to make some music together–to try for a real, collaborative mixing from the wells of jazz and bluegrass. The quartet’s first performance together at the 2011 Savannah Music Festival re-proved the theory that not much separates great improvisatory musicians.

The show at the Carolina was very much like the first one, crackling with joyous energy. Much of the unbroken (nearly 2 hour!) set was electrifying, as the musicians romped through classics and new compositions completely in sync with each other. Roberts has great rapidity and clarity, and his fingers know all the jazz piano greats of the 20^th century. His emotional range includes the silvery, spacious delicacy of Teddy Wilson, and the blistering stride of Errol Garner. Sometimes Fleck’s banjo sounded like a harpsichord chattering to a pianoforte. Sometimes it rang out like a horn. Other times, it had the sound of a plucked jazz guitar (I thought of Joe Pass). A duet between banjo and bass fluttered like delicate lace in a breeze. Whether all four instruments were active, one only, or any of the possible combinations were at play, the musicians were deeply attentive to each other, which gave music already cheerful a charge of bubbling gaiety.

Marcus Roberts, photo Duke Performances.

One goes to a concert not just to hear the music, but to see its makers do their magic. This one presented an unusual sight. Pianist Roberts is blind (he studied music at Ray Charles’ alma mater), and he was seated with his back to the drummer and bassist (and to me, in house left), who would sometimes have been able to see his hands. Fleck sat on a raised chair close to the left end of the piano, but even he had to read the subtle cues in Robert’s body language along with the cues within the music, in addition to those flashing digits. It was amazing to observe. More fun to watch, however, was the elegant drumming by the long, lean, handsomely suited Jason Marsalis. Even while keeping multiple complex rhythms going simultaneously, he makes textures as much as beats. He’s very controlled, very nuanced—and sometimes very mischievous. He and bassist Jordan got into an escalating challenge of interrupted rhythm patterns during their riff together, until it resolved into laughter and all the players sweeping back in, across the entirely imaginary divide between virtuoso musicians of whatever stripe.

More:

Interviews with Roberts and Fleck on DP’s blog, The Thread.

Stylishly made and informative video made in support of the 2012 recording, Across the Imaginary Divide.

Listen here to a few cuts of Across the Imaginary Divide.

This amateur video gives a look at Marsalis’ elegant drumming.

Hour-long recording from the quartet’s first performance together at the 2011 Savannah Music Festival. There’s a little announcer talk at the top, but then it commences to SWING. Stay with it through the announcer break at 35 minutes–first up is a sparkling piano/banjo duet on “Maple Leaf Rag.”