Fleck, Hussain, and Meyer
by JS
Last night was my first visit to the Texas Performing Arts Center. The hall was pleasing and larger than I expected, or at least felt that way from our nosebleed seats in the second balcony. We did get a chance to enjoy the outdoor sixth floor balcony during intermission, though the entire evening was, for me, spent entirely too close to railings offering scant psychological protection from the drop offs they enclose.
Béla Fleck was the only familiar name on the bill (I’m naïve regarding tabla and bass players), but as a musician who traditionally attracts the best, I had high hopes for the other performers. It was, to be blunt, an evening of bests. The best banjo player, the best bassist, the best tabla player, an odd tripling that probably represented more Grammy Awards than I could carry at once.
[ Aside: You can quibble about who's the best at anything. Really it doesn't matter, as being the best is more like being in the echelon of preeminent. ]
The thing about the banjo is that it is basically designed to be right in the front of anything. I imagine learning to lay back with that kind of sound is quite difficult, and I found it continually surprising how well a bass and tabla player could remain musically out front of the banjo’s domineering sound.
[ Aside: Putting a drum head behind strings is badass. ]
The tabla is an instrument that I haven’t spent any serious time with, so that was the major revelation of the evening for me. Zakir could play the tablas so fast and with tonal variation that at times gave the impression of two instruments being played at once (rather than one played exceedingly fast), a kind of aural illusion that I’ve previously only experienced while listening to Wynton Marsalis play Arban’s Fantasie and Variations on The Carnival of Venice.
The best quote of the night came from Edgar Meyer, when describing the next piece, a canon:
This next piece is about four minutes long. I think the length of a piece is an important thing to know for modern compositions.
There were some hammer jokes as well.
Comments
Dude. What an awesome show. I was able to see Fleck and Meyers a couple years back. Incredible. Edgar Meyer has been called the best bass player by enough musicians that you be hard to find someone that would argue.
Listening to Tabla is so much fun. I’ve heard (but can’t verify) that tabla students spend years vocalizing the music before ever touching a drum.