Track Listing

1. Intro
2. Hoedown
3. Moment So Close
4. Zona Mona
5. Hall of Mirrors
6. Earth Jam
7. Something She Said
8. Ovombo Summit
9. Aimun
10. Prelude
11. Lover's Leap
12. Outbound
13. Scratch & Sniff
14. Shuba Yatra
15. That Old Thing
16. Reprise

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17746 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2000-07-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
Japanese Version Featuring A Bonus Track.

Amazon.com
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones emit joy, exuberance, and stylistic outreach routinely when playing live. That reach opens their Outbound with "Hoedown," which might just as well be titled "Barn Dances of the Gods," connecting as it does the Appalachian folk lineage to the works of Aaron Copland and Oliver Nelson.

On their first recording for Columbia, this charismatic touring band is making a serious move for the kind of commercial breakthrough (à la The Pat Metheny Group or Heavy Weather) that their talent and ambition should long ago have cemented. Thus, when Shawn Colvin's lilting soprano answers "Futureman" Roy Wooten's raplike intro on the bridge to "A Moment So Close," followed by exotic textures and metric changes right out of a South Indian raga, the effect is not unlike the Dave Matthews Band's sophisticated amalgam of pop and jazz-fusion. Indeed, Futureman's vocals key several excellent tracks, as Outbound finds these virtuoso populists cruising in the passing lane of popular acceptance with airs of Near Eastern, North African, and South Indian folk music abounding (and commingling with Northern European elements on "Shuba Yatra").

Guest artists Adrian Belew on guitar, Andy Narell on steel drums, and John Medeski on organ help flesh out several fine arrangements. Bluesy undercurrents, coy humor, and echoes of rustic and urban Americana abound on the title tune, "Lover's Leap," "Scratch and Sniff," and "That Old Thing." Even when a more jammy mood predominates (as on "Earth Jam," where one of Fleck's electric lines suggests both the tone and phrasing of a Jerry Garcia solo), the virtuoso imagination of banjo master Fleck and bass guitar innovator Victor Wooten are focused entirely at the service of the arrangements. A giant leap forward for the Flecktones and their fans. --Chip Stern

Customer Reviews

Who are these guys, & what have they done w the Flecktones?
Don't get me wrong, I like this album, on the whole. That's why I gave it 4 stars. But where is Vic? Heck, where's Bela? They are so far submerged under layers & layers of sound, you can barely pick them out. Guests outnumber Flecktones on something like 11 of 16 tracks. Bela only plays banjo on 10. Victor is almost impossible to find in the mix. Still, Scratch & Sniff is great funk; Hoedown is a wild ride; Zona Mona is a fine tune; & A Moment So Clear is an incredible mix of sounds & textures. But this band has become Jeff Coffin, Roy Wooten aka FutureMan aka Royel, and guests, including Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, & many more. I'm looking forward to seeing them live again, where I hope Bela & Vic don't get swallowed up in the mix. Bela has always been the least egotistical, most generous of frontmen, but as a longtime fan (2o years), I am having a hard time getting used to the overproduced wall of sound.

And just when you thought they couldn't get any better...
I can't believe the musical diversity and variety in this album - I just can't believe it. Every single song is something new and different. From a cover of an Aaron Copland song, Hoe Down (which is amazing), to what sounds like a fairly normal pop song on first listen...until you discover that it's in 7/8 time, and you marvel at how they made it sound good (Aimum), to a song that alternates a funk riff in 4/4, played on a sax through a wah-wah pedal, with a beautiful banjo melody in 17/16, or I suppose 8.5/8 (Scratch & Sniff), to a showcase of Jeff's ability to play two saxes at once (Earth Jam), and on down the list, this album is a completely exceptional musical experience, through and through.

I must say, though, that with all the variety on the album, the best is Moment So Close. I can't understand why, but it has me hooked. There are five separate and distinct musical themes in the song, most of them in different keys, yet somehow it all holds together. I particularly love the round section, where the guest vocalists and guest horn players along with FutureMan and Jeff all play/sing variations on the same melodies, slightly altered, in a round form. It is so rich and interesting.

I really just don't understand how this stuff is possible. The Flecktones are incredible - music simply cannot get any better than these guys.

Good, not great
One of the great things about the early Flecktones albums was the lack of over dubs, they just consisted of 4 guys getting together and playing. This album is anything but that. Even though it is exciting to hear the depth that these added musicians add, the album to me seems over produced. Plus, this album continues in the same style of their previous record, with more vocals and more of a smooth-jazz type style. This is not to say that the album doesn't have many fine spots. Hoedown is a fantastic piece, full of energy, twists, and unexpected turns. A Moment So Close is a complex pop arrangement, with many different sections and styles that you can't help but feel intrigued by them when you listen to it. However, some of the tracks are somewhat predictable (a word I thouht I would never use when describing this group), such as Zona Mona and Something She Said. All in all, a good album if you like a very solidly produced album with lots of guests, but if you like the more organic sound of the earlier incarnations of the Flecktones, I would stick with those albums instead.