Posted by On July 5th, 1998 (or so, more on that later) I drove to Montreal to take in their wonderful, world-class jazz festival. I had attended my first Festival International de Jazz de Montréal a decade earlier and had tried (and mostly failed) to attend at least something at the festival every summer since then. At the time Ottawa’s festival scene was just starting to grow in earnest and I was on the cusp of finding equally awesome entertainment at home. But not yet, so off I went to Montreal.
A little scrap of paper in my ticket book tells me I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones that day and a band called Juke Joint as well. There is no actual ticket and I didn’t list the venue other than to write “Montreal Jazz Fest” which is fine, as I remember this was a free outdoor concert, unticketed and un-venued as it were. But when I check the good old Ministry of Truth online I see listings for two Flecktones concerts at the festival that year, taking place July 3rd and 4th at The Spectrum. And so it is that technology and I come to loggerheads once again.
Left with few other options I find myself forced to side with my addled brain in order to finish this report, and I herby declare that you are forced to join me by proxy. Worry not though, as I wow you with my astounding capacity for memory and dextrous powers of recall:
Juke Joint was a funky B3 soul/funk band with jazz leanings that was probably out of New Orleans or environs. Regardless, they provided a fine and fun soundtrack for the beer lines and jockeying for position in the large, angular plaza.
My girlfriend and I found ourselves up pretty close and to the right of the tall stage when Bela Fleck and his Flecktones started playing, and though we were so close that I could only see half of the musicians that towered above us I was instantly wowed by all of them. The musicianship was so top notch with these guys it was hard to know what to pay attention to. It takes about ten seconds to know that frontman Bela Fleck is the world’s most inconspicuous and congruous musical hero. The sax player always seemed to have multiple instruments stuck in his mouth battling for domination (and all winning) and even though I couldn’t see the bass player he knocked me out with some of the finest, most fluid bass chops I had ever heard.
Though an old friend of mine used to go see the Flecktones when they would stop in to Barrymore’s he never managed to convince me to join him. In fact, I’m quite sure that this was my first time seeing Bela or his band, and I say that with some confidence because it wasn’t until I was afforded a wide view of the stage on a beer run that I noticed that the band didn’t have a drummer. My brain almost broke.
I had been dancing below stage left and simply marvelling at the skills of the drummer that I could hear but not see. And then I cast a glance at the stage from the drink line and discovered that the percussive duties of the Flecktones fell in fact upon Futureman*, the world’s greatest Drumitar player (and don’t let it detract from your image of his abilities when you learn that he is simultaneously the world’s only Drumitar player, as I believe Futureman is the inventor of the guitar-shaped drum pad amalgama-caster).
The absence of a kit forced me to immediately wonder where all the percussion sound was coming from and when I spied Futureman and realized what was going on, well, I still wondered where all that sound was coming from.
Anyway, the whole band killed and it was a great set of music. Even if Big Brother would have you believe that it never happened.
*Futureman is bass player Victor Wooten’s brother and apparently he’s a very good guitar player taboot.
Todd Man Out 