Stay-Home World Tour Stop #1: Bela Fleck's Africa Project
By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 22, 2010 9:20PM
Chicago's largely coincidental tour of world music kicked off last night with Bela Fleck's Africa Project concerts at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The tour is a spinoff from the 2009 documentary "Throw Down Your Heart" about Fleck's 2005 trip to sub-Saharan Africa to explore the roots of his instrument - the banjo having made its way to America on slave ships - and the Grammy Award-winning album of the same name.
Fleck is best known for his work with the Flecktones and for helping to expand what's musically and technically possible on the banjo. If newgrass isn't your cup of tea, however, you may not realize Fleck is a brilliant musician who has ably collaborated with a variety of other musical acts. Having talent and a penchant for variety is great, but what makes Fleck singular is his sincerity and humility in these projects. Watch "Throw Down Your Heart" and you'll know it's not a gimmick. Knowing that he funded the project himself helps with that evaluation, but more convincing is the unabashed enthusiasm of the jam sessions and, to a greater extent, Fleck's wide-eyed interest as he watches the musicians from Tanzania, Uganda, Gambia, and Mali.
It's this role as the unobtrusive (and ridiculously talented) facilitator that Fleck brought to town last night. The single set show featured two Tanzanians, singer and thumb piano master Anania Ngoglia and guitarist John Kitime, and a septet from Mali, Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba. Each group played a few pieces alone, with Fleck returning to the stage to marvel along with the audience. He performed with each group, melding in and not upstaging, although that may have been an impossibility with musicians as accomplished as these (Ngoglia's virtuosic thumbs, Ngoni Ba vocalist Amy Sacko, and Kouyate's ngoni - the banjo's distant cousin - were particularly fantastic). Fleck sneaked in a solo piece and a bluegrass-esque song with fiddler Casey Driessen and two Ngoni Ba percussionists, but the concert's spotlight was always fixed on everyone. Inevitably, the show ended with all participants on stage playing together, which underscores the thrust of the "Throw Down Your Heart" endeavor: Fleck's inquiry into the banjo's origins wasn't about the instrument itself, but rather about the connection of the music the various instruments convey.
The tour, now halfway complete, has moved on, although you can see Kouyate for free in Millennium Park on June 10.