Motley Moose – Archive

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”. For example …..

FATHER-SON? – rock musicians George Harrison and Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters).

   

ART NOTES – a collection spanning 200 years of Japanese woodblock prints is at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Montana through September 30th.

PROGRAMMING NOTE – for the remainder of August, my posting may be a bit thin. I will be moving (in stages) 50 miles south of where I live now (going to Keene, New Hampshire) and so will be preoccupied with junking items, packing boxes and the like. I do expect to post something next week ….. tough to stay away from here ….. but will be off-line for part of the following weekend. So my output just may be a less than normal, that’s all.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Beau the Hero Cat – who saved a sleeping woman’s life (who didn’t hear a fire alarm during a house fire) by repeatedly hurling her body against a closed bedroom door until the woman awoke.

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK? – if you haven’t done so, read this essay by Warren Buffett’s son Peter on the “Charitable Industrial Complex”.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the film star Karen Black – one of the best female leads of her generation, methinks – who has died at the age of 74.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Smarty the Cat – an Illinois stray found with a shattered leg …. but getting around three legs (after amputation) and is up for adoption.

HAIL and FAREWELL to “Europe’s First Lady of Jazz” – the Dutch singer Rita Reys who has performed with Lester Young, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie – who has died at the age of 88.

IN a PROFILE of the actor Matt Damon he explains why his mother (who apparently only reads magazines such as The Nation) was so appalled the first time she saw her son featured in a glossy magazine. “My beautiful boy is being used to sell products,” she told a newspaper. “He is just a cog in the capitalist system.”

GOOD LUCK to the new town councilor in the Spanish city of Valladolid, Angela Covadonga Bachiller – who will be Spain’s first municipal official with Down’s Syndrome.

TO MARK the 18th anniversary of his death this past week: in this 50 year-old photo, Jerry Garcia and his first wife look – for all the world – like 2/3 of Peter, Paul & Mary.

IN FACT – eighteen years ago this week saw the death of both Jerry Garcia and Mickey Mantle …. who would seemingly have little in common, and people’s responses to their passing tended not to have much in common, either. But I saw them as an ‘ordered pair’ in the timing of their deaths. Why so? Because these were two men who were ….

* Symbolic of their times

* Who died due to the ‘excesses’ of their times

* And whose deaths were mourned by people born after their times.

SEPARATED at BIRTH – model Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor (daughter of Duran Duran bassist John Taylor) and TV star Rachel Bilson (“O.C.”, “Hart of Dixie”).

   

……and finally, for a song of the week …………… do you know who has been nominated in more Grammy Award categories (nine, winning in eight of them) than any other performer? You may be surprised to learn it is a banjo player (an instrument not often associated with a wide range of music styles).

But if you are familiar with the work of Béla Fleck …. then this isn’t so hard to imagine, since he seems to fit in anywhere he plays. And for someone who cites the Allman Brothers, Earl Scruggs, Aretha Franklin and Charlie Parker as influences …. well, now it all seems natural.

Hailing from that banjo stronghold of ….. ummm …… New York City, he was named (by his German-teaching father) Béla Anton Leos Fleck after: Hungarian composer Béla Bartók …. two Czech composers: Antonin Dvorák (with Anton being the German form) ……. and Leos Janácek ….. with Béla’s brother being named Ludwig after Beethoven).

Fleck was captured by the sound of the banjo from … well, the Beverly Hillbillies theme song and Dueling Banjos and received one as a gift. Attending New York’s High School of Music and Art, he studied with banjo master Tony Trischka.

After graduation, he joined a Boston progressive bluegrass band called Tasty Licks, and later a Kentucky band called Spectrum. In 1981, he was noticed by mandolinist Sam Bush, one of the pioneers of the Newgrass sound. Bush invited Fleck to join his long-running band The New Grass Revival where he remained for much of the 1980’s. Along the way, a solo album earned him his first Grammy nomination.

It was a 1989 PBS special called “Lonesome Pine Special” (for which he was recruited) that brought him together with the musicians that would become known as The Flecktones which exists to this day (although they take time off to pursue solo careers). Two mainstays are Roy Wooten – (far right, below) who is an expressive percussionist – and his brother Victor Wooten (2nd from left, below) – a bassist of the first magnitude, believe-you-me.

Their eponymous first album and 1991’s Flight of the Cosmic Hippo garnered their first wide-spread audience – and one could hear them on rock, jazz and progressive country stations. Throughout the decade they released albums that could be listened to by many different audiences, joining Columbia at the beginning of 2000. At that time, Fleck branched into classical music with a 2001 album Perpetual Motion that featured works by Bach, Chopin, and Scarlatti (and accompanists such as John Williams and Joshua Bell). Fleck has also co-composed a concerto that had its debut with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

He has also been a sideman on numerous recordings of many diverse musicians: Nanci Griffith – at this link appearing on “Evening at Pops” with her ….. plus Chick Corea, Zakir Hussein, Ginger Baker, Rodney Crowell, Phish, Dave Matthews, Bruce Hornsby, Shawn Colvin and McCoy Tyner. Yeah, he gets around.

At age 55, he is known around the world for his performance. Although not Hungarian himself, Béla was named (a few years ago) as an Honorary Hungarian by Hungary’s ambassador to the United States.

Béla Fleck begins an August solo tour later this month in Saratoga Springs, NY (with the Philadelphia Orchestra) and later some dates with his wife Abigail Washburn (below) – who plays the clawhammer banjo player.

With 30+ Grammy nominations (for country, pop, jazz, bluegrass, classical, folk, spoken word, composition, and arranging) and 14 Grammys won …… well, if there is a way to make a commercially successful (banjo-oriented) heavy metal or hip-hop album ……. Béla Fleck will find it first.

   

Most of the music of the Flecktones is instrumental … but one with lyrics is “A Moment So Close” that showcases the band’s harder, rock-edged sound. It features Victor Wooten on vocals and below you can listen to it.