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Béla Fleck: Uncommon Ritual

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Sony Classical
Released: 1997.09.30
Time:
 77:31
Category: Progressive Jazz
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.flecktones.com
Appears with: Victor Wooten
Purchase date: 2001.11.20
Price in €: 18,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Uncommon Ritual (E.Meyer) - 6:00
[2] Seesaw (B.Fleck) - 2:59
[3] Sliding Down (E.Meyer) - 4:39
[4] Chromium Picolinate (B.Fleck/E.Meyer) - 3:34
[5] Contramonkey (E.Meyer) - 3:51
[6] Chance Meeting (E.Meyer) - 5:03
[7] Zigeuneweisen (Del Sarasate) - 8:29
[8] Travis (B.Fleck) - 2:58
[9] Old Tyme (E.Meyer) - 3:24
[10] Contrapunctus XIII from "The Art of the Fugue (J.S.Bach) - 6:57
[11] Third Movement from "Amalgamations for Solo Bass (E.Meyer) - 5:26
[12] By the River (E.Meyer) - 3:22
[13] Big Country (B.Fleck) - 4:03
[14] Barnyard Disturbance (E.Meyer) - 3:42
[15] In the Garden (E.Meyer) - 5:32
[16] Child's Play (M.Marshall) - 3:07
[17] The Big Cheese (B.Fleck/M.Marshall/E.Meyer) - 4:19

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


BÉLA FLECK - Banjo, Gut String Banjo, Low Banjo, Gut String Guitar, Papoose Guitar, National Steel Guitar Mandolin, Arranger, Producer
EDGAR MEYER - Bass, Piano, Mandocello, Arranger, Producer
MIKE MARSHALL - Guitar, Mandolin, Mandola, Mandocello, Associate Producer, Arranger

DAVE SINKO - Engineer
ROGER NICHOLS - Mastering
TRACY HACKNEY - Production Assistant, Assistant Engineer
ALLEN WEINBERG - Art Direction
JOEL ZIMMERMAN - Design
JIM MCGUIRE - Photography
THOMAS GOLDSMITH - Liner Notes

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1997 CD Sony 62891
1997 CD Sony Classical 62891



Tremendous collaboration of three virtuosos for a set of quirky originals, mixing chamber music with bluegrass and "new acoustic" styles.

Todd Denton - December 1, 1997
Copyright © 1994-2001 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.



Let's begin by fleshing out the headnote's etceteras to this pleasant release. Edgar Meyer plays bass (bowed and plucked), piano, and mandocello; Béla Fleck, banjo, gut-string banjo, gut-string guitar, papoose guitar, national guitar, and mandolin; Mike Marshall, mandolin, mandola, mandocello, and guitar. While I don't know what some of these instruments are, ignorance has little to do with the thrust of one's remarks. Again, Uncommon Ritual plays as an enjoyment. It is also Edgar Meyer's second such for Sony Classical. For the first, Appalachia Waltz, 68460 (which I have not heard), Meyer performs with cellist Yo Yo Ma and violinist Mark O'Conner. In the present release, all goes swimmingly well. The recording flatters the excellent instrumentalists with a close-up and warmish perspective. One's fly-in-the-ointment is this: why does the disc appear under Sony's Classical imprimatur? The program drifts perilously close to bluegrass and precincts thereunto, with art-music nods consisting of transcriptions, first, of Sarasate's Zieguenerweisen; second, Contrapunctus XIII of The Art of Fugue; and third (according to the press release accompanying my prepub review copy), a William Byrd fantasia, which I believe to be the serene and quite lovely By the River. The track immediately preceding this, Meyer's "Third Movement from Amalgamations for Solo Bass," takes a lonely excursion into modernist art-music making. I have several times asked my editor for permission to cover an ostensible jazz release in the alpha section, because I've felt that events come close enough to art music's usages. (See Shipp/Morris and Eskelin/Parkins/Black in this issue.) Conversely, I asked my editor to allow me to review something that identifies itself as "classical" but which in my opinion is not sufficiently so in order to remark those meandering tendencies besetting major labels especially. I speak of course as a disinterested reviewer, not a businessman. I suspect that had Appalachia Waltz failed to engorge the bottom line (to whatever degree of avoirdupois), Uncommon Ritual would be but a dream or, more likely, occupying a label less well known. It's the record-business culture at which one looks askance, not these fine performers or Edgar Meyer's entertaining music. Call Uncommon Ritual a misfiled charmer.

Mike Silverton - January 21, 1998
Fanfare



I was eager to hear this CD, having thoroughly enjoyed Edgar Meyer's collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Texas fiddle-player Mark O'Connor on the 1996 Sony release Appalachia Waltz (SK 68460). That record successfully blended "formal" (a more useful term than "classical" in this context) and "traditional" music in a program that never seemed forced or self-congratulatory. There's more of the same here as double bassist Meyer is joined by modern bluegrass ("newgrass") luminaries Béla Fleck, playing (mostly) banjo, and Mike Marshall on (mostly) mandolin. No question about it: you'll have to like the sound of plucked strings to appreciate the pleasures of this disc (and Mahler's Seventh Symphony and Kleine Dreigroschenmusik will not provide the necessary background in, respectively, mandolin and banjo artistry). Many of the 17 short pieces incorporate, to greater or lesser degrees, elements of bluegrass music. But Hee-Haw this is not. Even the obviously bluegrass-flavored compositions feature ingenious cross-rhythms, unexpected chord progressions, and astringent harmonies. Plenty of the music is improvised, but much is "through-composed" and carefully arranged. Those who collect Art of Fugues can add the Contrapunctus XIII performed here to the versions for brass quintet and saxophones. But the main attraction here is Edgar Meyer, a musician of considerable versatility, who plays with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, but is quite at home with jazz, country, and other genres. He is also a composer, with works performed by the Emerson Quartet and the Minnesota Orchestra. A movement from his Amalgamations for Solo Bass offered here is quite inventive, with melancholy ruminations and swirling, almost Middle Eastern-sounding sections. Meyer is among the very best arco bassists I've ever heard. The Sarasate Zigeunerweisen, at eight and a half minutes the longest selection on the CD, is easily worth the price of admission. Discreetly accompanied by Marshall on mandolin, the player's evenness of tone production, impeccable intonation, dazzling passagework, pure harmonics and facile double-stops make this a must-hear for fans of transcendent string playing. We've all heard "virtuoso" bass players before -- their exertions generally elicit a kind a begrudging admiration. But Meyer's playing has nothing of a circus atmosphere. It's utterly assured and effortless, with an attractive sound in the upper register that's decidedly cellolike. The player's remarkable technique is always in the service of musicality. Sony's recorded sound captures the resinous beauty of Meyer's playing high up on the fingerboard as well as the subterranean growl of his instrument's lower reaches; Fleck and Marshall are recorded with finesse as well. In the style of original instrument recordings, the make and year of manufacture of all the plucked and strummed instruments, and Meyer's sonorous, 18th-century Italian bass, are listed in the liner notes. As those notes aver, this album delivers, in its intent and execution, true chamber music. It deserves a hearing by those who love that medium.

Andrew Quint - February 26, 1998
Fanfare
 

 L y r i c s


Instrumental Album!

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