RoyalTea

I've just recently discovered Béla Fleck & the Flecktones. I bought Live Art, Little Worlds, and his classical CD with Edgar Meyer. all I have to say is ... wow! I find it telling that if you go to the reader reviews on amazon for Live Art, and sort by the lowest ranking first, you'll get the one four star review, everything else is five stars.

He has to be the most gifted musician of this era.

reverie

I've only heard his stuff a couple times, an old friend of mine used to really be into his music. But really, I can't remember it anymore, so I have nothing useful to contribute. It's just a name I'd have never expected to see as a subject line.

garyb

Live Art is amazing.

Tom Banjo

Bela is possibly my favorite musician. My user name is in part due to him (and Grateful Dead), and he is the reason that I took up playing banjo. I give my absolute highest recommendation to the album Perpetual Motion, another album of classical music. As far as the Flecktones stuff goes, it honestly doesn't get any better than Live Art IMHO, and anything else might be a bit of a letdown.
Tales From the Acoustic Planet 1 and 2 are both also great. 2 is strictly bluegrass (which I'm not really a fan of unless Bela's playing it), and 1 doesn't really fit in with any genre.

atlantamoi

Perfect example of an artist I respect, but don't like. I was at a festival ages ago and watched part of his show, but the music does absolutely nothing for me. No doubt the guy is talented, though.

TheMadMonk

Same here, I respect him, even have a couple cds, but really never listen to them.

Cameron

he plays in nashville what seems like every week. Nice guy too. He used to come into my shop all the time.

Gdrlv

Definitely catch the Flecktones live. They're amazing in concert.

NORML54601

Archive.org has over 100 Bela Fleck & The Flecktones shows. I've got 7 live shows but no studio albums.

wendersfan

The guy, and his band, can play the hell out of their instruments. Their music does nothing for me.

RoyalTea

what are the best live shows to download?

is anything on archive.org close to the masterpiece of "live art"?

Kal-El

Saw them live in my college back home waaay back in 95 (Wow, 10 years ago). The group's fantastic, but it was Victor Wooten who really caught my attention. Awesome bassman. Does he still play with Bela?

Tom Banjo

Victor is still with them, although they're taking the year off from touring so they could concentrate on solo efforts. They'll most likely a lot next year since they have a new album coming out in January. Vic's got a new album called Soul Circus that's pretty good. Also, the sax player Jeff Coffin has a relatively new album called Bloom that's damn good.
RoyalTea: this link
http://www.flecktones.com/boards/default.asp
will take you to the Flecktones message board. It's currently down or I'd specifically link to the thread about some free (and legit) live releases. The fans voted on the 5 best shows, and those are being released over the course of the year via torrent. Those would be a good starting place for you to get some good live music for free. I think 2 or 3 have been put out so far.

Cameron

just go to 3rd and linsley in nashville...wooten play all the time

NORML54601

http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-d...=browsePopular is the best show available in the archive. All of them I've heard are good, but this one has some particularly smooth jams and amazing sound quality (mics on stage). The site has a review system for users to rate shows so you can get an idea of what you're getting before downloading. If you have a high-speed connection, lossless is the way to go, especally for this BF&F show.

The Bus

I have a couple of friends that are really into Béla Fleck. I made my friend a foam cutout of the cosmic hippo from the cover of their album and he took it to a Border's (!!!) where the Flecktones were playing and had them sign it.

I always thought the song "Ufo Tofu" was pretty cool. I'll have to check out Live Art.

NORML54601

Everyone into BF&F should check out the show from 4/22/2006 It's a great show like most of the the other on archive.org, but this features a special guest appearance by Baaba Maal, A Senagalese musician who makes some really cool music. I highly reccomend his stuff if you're looking to add some worldy music to your collection.

fliggil

His live covers of Linus & Lucy are awesome, such a talent, can't wait to see him open for Dave Matthews at the Randall's Island show in August-

Nausicaa

I'm a big fan of all things jazz and fusion, and people have been telling me to check out Bela Fleck for years. Well, on youtube I stumbled upon a live show of DMBs #41 with Fleck and the Flecktones (I was looking at DMB strictly for nostalgic value) and thought he was absolutely amazing. I felt bad for DMB since they were outclassed in every way by the flecktones who took centerstage during the 30 minute performance.

I immediately went to Borders and bought Live at the Quick, Little Worlds, and The Hidden Land. This music is sooo up my alley it's not even funny. Excellent musicianship, clever and complex songs, and awesome jamming. Little Worlds in particular has really amazed me. I've never seen a group encompass such a wide range of musical styles SO WELL in a single album before. It's remarkable. They remind me a great deal of Oregon, but - and I apologize to Ralph Towner and Paul McCandless - Fleck may exceed even their brilliance. Really sad I didn't get into them earlier and see their performance at the Chicago Theater in June.

Nick Danger

I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones live a couple of months ago. They put on an amazing show.

My 'brush with greatness story' was juggling with Victor Wooten's brother at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.