Chick Corea, Béla Fleck on tap at Phillips Center

February 16, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — It’s an odd combination, uniting a jazz pianist with a banjo player. After all, when you think “jazz,” the banjo is not an instrument that comes readily to mind. But jazz is innovative –– the kind of art form that can be anything because it was born out of the combination of different musical styles, influences and ideas.

Combining such two seemingly different musical genres is made easier by having two highly talented musicians, whose mastery of their individual instruments is phenomenal: Chick Corea, a jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer who has won multiple Grammy awards, and Béla Fleck, a banjo virtuoso best known for his work with his group, the Flecktones. The pair join musical forces when they play in concert at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. March 4.

Fleck, who calls hearing Corea’s recording of his composition “Spain” a “defining moment,” heard Corea and his band, Return to Forever, playing one night. “I stayed up all night trying to figure out how to play what those guys were playing –– on my banjo,” he says. “By morning, I knew it could be done.

Corea was familiar with the Flecktones’ music, a combination of bluegrass and bebop, and the unique way Fleck played the banjo. “It’s totally unusual to hear a banjo played that way,” Corea says. “Béla was taking the instrument and the tradition of the banjo and bringing it up as a seriously virtuosic instrument. When I first listened to the Flecktones, I heard a completely fresh sound.”

While the pair admired each other’s work for years, it wasn’t until they got to know one another socially that the idea to pair up musically was formulated. Fleck invited Corea to record on the Flecktones’ CD “Tales from the Acoustic Planet.” Corea reciprocated by inviting Fleck to perform with him and Bobby McFerrin on “Rendezvous in New York,” a 2002 project recorded live at the Blue Note jazz club in New York.

But they never played as a duo –– until they began talking about a collaborative project and its potential. Then everything “came together quickly,” Corea says.

Corea and Fleck started talking. And talking. And talking. They finally decided to write, so then they both wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Finally, the pair got together in Nashville at Edgar Meyer’s studio and began to put everything together.

The end result of their efforts is “The Enchantment,” which will be released by Concord Records in May. For Fleck, recording the album was “one of my greatest experiences as a musician,” he says. Corea returns the compliment by saying that the album has broken new ground for him. The blending of two musicians, and their two instruments, also has created a combination that, like its creators, is a little off the beaten path.

Tickets are available by calling the Phillips Center Box Office at 352-392-2787 or 800-905-ARTS or by calling Ticketmaster at 904-353-3309. Orders may be faxed to 352-846-1562. Tickets are also available at the Phillips Center Box Office, University Box Office at the University of Florida Reitz Student Union and all Ticketmaster outlets; and on the Web at www.ticketmaster.com.

The Phillips Center Box Office is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and two hours before performances.