Béla
Fleck and Abigail Washburn present their eponymous debut album as a duo, after
many years of prominence as banjo players and composers in their own eclectic
avenues. Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn
is a front porch banjo and vocal album of new music, Appalachian murder
ballads, gospel, chamber and blues; the culmination of a yearlong tour as a duo
in 2013, following the birth of their son, Juno. Béla, an icon and innovator of
jazz, classical and world, with more multi-category GRAMMY wins than any other
artist (15 total), and Abigail, a formidable talent with triumphs in
songwriting, theater, performance, and even Chinese diplomacy by way of banjo,
turn out to be quite a fortuitous pairing with a deep, distinct and satisfying
outcome.
The culmination is an album like no other. The record reveals their
astounding chemistry as collaborators, as the two seamlessly stitch together
singular banjo sounds (through an assortment of seven banjos spanning the
recording) in service to the stories that their songs tell, with no studio
gimmickry needed. According to Béla, “finding a way to make every song have its
own unique stamp, yet the whole project having a big cohesive sound – with only
two people,” was at the core of their joint vision. Demonstrating seemingly
unlimited rhythmic, tonal and melodic capabilities, Fleck and Washburn confirm
the banjo’s versatility as the perfect backdrop to the rich lyrical component
that Fleck and Washburn offer, “Sometimes when you add other instruments, you
take away from the banjo’s being able to show all its colors, which are
actually quite beautiful.” Thanks to this album, the musicians’ palette has
never been more vivid or pure.
Sure, in
the abstract, a banjo duo might seem like a musical concept beset by
limitations. But when the banjo players cast in those roles are Abigail
Washburn and Béla Fleck—she with the earthy sophistication of a postmodern,
old-time singer-songwriter, he with the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity
of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots— it’s a
different matter entirely. There’s no denying that theirs is a one-of-a-kind
pairing, with one-of-a-kind possibilities.
Fleck
and Washburn have collaborated in the past, most visibly in their Sparrow
Quartet with Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee. Until last fall, though, any
performances they gave as a two-piece were decidedly informal, a pickin’ party
here, a benefit show at Washburn’s grandmother’s Unitarian church there. It was
inevitable and eagerly anticipated by fans of tradition-tweaking acoustic fare
that these partners in music and life (who married in 2009) would eventually do
a full-fledged project together.
Now that
Fleck, a fifteen-time GRAMMY winner, has devoted time away from his
standard-setting ensemble Béla Fleck and the Flecktones to a staggeringly broad
array of musical experiments, from writing a concerto for the Nashville
Symphony to exploring the banjo’s African roots to jazz duos with Chick Corea,
while Washburn has drawn critical acclaim for her solo albums, done fascinating
work in folk musical diplomacy in China, presented an original theatrical
production, contributed to singular side groups Uncle Earl and The Wu-Force and
become quite a live draw in her own right, the two of them decided they were ready
to craft their debut album as a duo, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
(releasing October 7 on Rounder Records).
There
was one other small, yet not at all insignificant factor in the timing: the
birth of their son Juno. Says Fleck, “I come from a broken home, and I have a
lot of musician friends who missed their kids’ childhoods because they were
touring. The combination of those two things really made me not want to be one
of those parents. I don’t want to be somebody that Juno sees only once in a while.
We need to be together, and this is a way we can be together a whole lot more.”
That
goes for touring and album-making both. Thanks to the fact that they have a
first-rate studio on the premises, Fleck and Washburn could record at home—but
that didn’t mean it was an easy process. Consumed with caring for their new
baby and perpetually sleep-deprived, they had to get resourceful in order to
carve out time to cut tracks.
“Béla is
really the reason that it’s finished,” Washburn emphasizes. “There were a few
months when Juno was a newborn that I just really had to have somebody say,
‘Hey, this is what we’re gonna do today.’ As long as I could spend a few hours
a day between nursings, we could make some good progress on the record.”
The aim
wasn’t simply to get the album done, but to make it feel satisfying and
complete using only the sounds they could coax out of their bodies and their
banjos. Says Fleck, “We didn’t want any other instruments on there, because
we’re into this idea that we’re banjo players, and that should be enough. Why
do you always have to have a rhythm section, a guitar player, a bass player or
something? Sometimes when you add other instruments, you take away from the
ability of the banjo to show all its colors, which are actually quite
beautiful.”
Washburn
and Fleck didn’t confine themselves to playing their usual workhorses, her Ome
Jubilee and his pre-war Gibson Mastertone Style 75. Between them, they used
seven different banjos in all, including a cello banjo, a ukulele banjo that
technically belongs to Juno and a baritone banjo that Fleck commissioned
specifically for this album.
“We had
this vision of playing different banjos in different registers,” he says,
“finding a way to make every song have its own unique stamp, yet the whole
project having a big, cohesive sound - with only two people.” (A giggling Juno
is the only other person who appears anywhere on the album.)
From
track to track, Washburn and Fleck are a nimble band unto themselves. On the
trad tune “Railroad,” she sustains a droning feel, while he jabs in syncopated
counterpoint. Woven into the middle of their arrangement is an excerpt from
another American banjo chestnut, “Oh! Susanna,” an occasion for Fleck to
briefly slip into a dixieland role. In their co-written original “Little
Birdie“ he supplies what amounts to a ticklish, inventive bass line while she
plays circling arpeggios and picks out the melody. “Bye Bye Baby Blues” is her
turn to toy with droll, walking bass beneath his wonderfully jaunty licks.
“What’cha Gonna Do,” which came entirely from his pen, lyrics and all, rides a
churning groove made up of intertwining banjo figures and foot patting.
All
that’s to say, there’s a ton going on rhythmically, tonally and melodically.
Then there are the breathtaking ballads like Washburn’s “Ride To You” and the
traditional “What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?,” which showcase the way she
caresses a lyric with the hearty yet elegant empathy of her vocals. (The story
goes that Fleck was so taken with her singing the first time he heard it on a
recording that he lost track of how fast he was driving and got pulled over.)
He’s singing harmony on a couple of tracks too, something he hasn't had the
chance to do since his New Grass Revival days.
You’d
expect Fleck to take the lead during intricate instrumentals, but that’s not
always the case here. In “New South Africa,” which came from his Flecktones
repertoire, he and Washburn each take a turn out front. And if you listen to
“banjo banjo” in stereo, it’s easy to make out the subtle rippling effect of
the two players seamlessly trading notes during ascending and descending runs.
That
kind of stuff was way out of Washburn’s comfort zone. “I come from the old-time
world,” she says, “which is more about communally trancing out on old fiddle
and banjo tunes. It has very little to do with soloing or anything technical or
virtuosic. So for me to try to learn Béla’s music has been a big challenge, but
a wonderful one. Although I'm a very different type of player, I feel very
lucky that he’s a musical mentor to me. It’s a beautiful part of our
connection.”
Fleck
chimes in, “I’m a big fan of Abby’s playing. I know it so well that I could
imagine the two of us playing these tunes together. I love looking at her
playing and going, ‘What can I throw into your kettle of soup that would make
it bubble up just a little bit?’”
The
directness of her musical sensibilities had a profound effect on him, too. “I
do a lot of heady music,” he explains, “and I’m always trying hard to keep soul
and melodicism as important elements, but there’s also a lot of complexity going
on. When I play with Abby, there’s an opportunity for me to make music that
hits you in a different place emotionally. That’s one of her gifts, is a pure
connection to the listener, taking simpler ideas and imbuing them with a lot of
personality and a point of view. I wanted to make sure that while I was
respecting my own ability to play complex ideas, I was also part of making that
feeling happen.”
A
surprising number of the songs on the album address matters of life and death,
a coincidence that Fleck and Washburn came to embrace. There are multiple
meditations on the afterlife, one example being the Appalachian-accented “And
Am I Born To Die,” which Washburn learned from a recording of one of her
heroes, Doc Watson. And if they were going to record the Victorian murder
ballad “Pretty Polly,” Washburn wanted to make sure that it was a version where
Polly had a speaking part, and that it was immediately followed in the song
sequence by her original “Shotgun Blues,” a song whose gist she summarizes as “I’m
gonna come after that nasty, old man that keeps killing all those ladies in all
those murder ballads.”
Of
course, Fleck and Washburn also had a new life entrusted into their care, and
were overwhelmed at times by how strong the protective parental instincts hit
them. So, after recording one version of “Little Birdie,” they ultimately went
with an alternate version where the mama bird saves the baby bird from a
crocodile in the final verse. That one felt right.
Judging
from the way Juno dances every time he hears it, his favorite song in the bunch
is “Railroad.” In fact, Fleck suggested they work it up after he overheard her
singing it to their newborn. (Washburn’s mother used to sing to her when she
was little too.) Juno gets to hear rehearsals and sound checks a plenty, since
he accompanies his parents to folk festivals, arts centers and theaters all
across the country. But he’s typically already asleep in his very own bunk on
the bus before the shows start.
Washburn
and Fleck playfully embrace the notion that they’ve become a family band. And
at home, on stage or on record, it’s their deep bond, on top of the way their
distinct musical personalities and banjo styles interact, that makes theirs a
picking partnership unlike any other on the planet.
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