Bela Fleck, Grisman Show Why They're Called Virtuosos

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Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and the David Grisman Quintet, last night at the Paramount Theatre, Seattle.

After a perfect spring day, a perfect night of music.

Banjoist Bela Fleck and mandolinist David Grisman are both virtuoso musicians backed by virtuoso ensembles. They're basically folk musicians who have taken their instruments to new levels of expression, creating original musical vocabularies by incorporating electronic effects and absorbing all kinds of influences. Each has created a unique new style while at the same time keeping their instruments' folk and jazz traditions alive.

Fleck is widely regarded as the finest banjo player working today. He can pick in traditional style quicker and more precisely than just about anyone, but mostly he uses a variety of foot pedals - more than a dozen - to alter the instrument's sound in an astonishing number of ways. He can make it sound like several kinds of guitars, an electronic synthesizer, or a banjo with the high, piercing sounds softened.

His band is more far out than he is. Percussionist Roy Wooten, a k a Future Man, creates a full range of drum sounds mostly through a bulky, boxlike, drum-machine/guitar synthesizer that's slung around his neck. Called a "synthaxe drumitar," it has a short guitar neck sticking up at an angle, and all kinds of multicolored buttons, strings and levers that he manipulates so skillfully you wonder where all the sound is coming from.

For his solo, he sat on a box that he kicked with one foot, while manipulating a variety of synth drums and electronic percussion with the other foot. African vocal chants came out of the box, as well as the big sounds of a full drum kit and a rack of percussion instruments. He also played a pair of symbols and single tom-tom, and sang the one song in the show.

His brother Victor Wooten is probably the most honored of all bassists. He seems to win all the magazine polls and folk and jazz awards. He was all over the strings during his solo, concentrating on the top of the fretboard, then down at the other end of the strings.

Jeff Coffin played mostly cool, jazzy runs on a variety of saxes and flutes, sometimes matching the lightning-fast Fleck note for note.

Grisman played a sweet and swinging mandolin-banjo duet with Fleck that quoted the swing classic "Caravan," melodies from the Beatles and traditional folk songs.

Bearded, ponytailed Grisman is a great gray bear of a man, somewhat reminiscent of his frequent musical cohort, the late Jerry Garcia. He's a brilliant mandolinist who makes the instrument whisper and shout and express all manner of emotions.

His band was made up of bassist James Kerwin, who's been with him 14 years; percussionist/violinist Joe Craven and flutist Matt Eakle, both with him for 10 years; and Argentine guitarist Enrique Coria, a relative newcomer at four years.