Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn Live Review

Two Hearts Strummed as One | Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn Live Review | The Plaza Live Orlando | March 6 2015

by Dainon Moody • March 10, 2015

Before you begin here, before you take in a word, I implore you to forget everything. Forget all you know of the banjo. Strip it all away and realize this: To witness Béla Fleck playing the banjo is to witness a man still mastering his craft.

And it’s not that he’s not already become great and stayed so, because he truly has. As for the one continual fascinating aspect of his career, though, it’s that he’s still finding new places to go with his sound. It hasn’t been enough for him to conquer the banjo; it’s that he needs to find new ways to re-conquer it, over and over again.

How many people do you know who have gone beyond their goals in search of whatever the new ones are? How many do you rub shoulders with who have reached and succeeded, only to wonder aloud, “Okay, what else?” This is the kind of man and musician Béla Fleck is. His playing is incredible—and it’s no question he may be the very best there is at the banjo—but the true thing to marvel at, the characteristic that makes his fans respect him so, is his approach to the new. It’s not just admirable, it’s seeing the impossible made possible, and regularly even.*

*Frankly, I don’t much mind if my praise is so strong for this man and this woman that my words tend to glow real bright. I hope they ring true and sink deep. There are more than enough good reasons why this man and his music (and his wife too, yes) are being praised.

I am lucky enough to say that I’ve seen Béla play a few times. I saw him with his Flecktones in some beautiful gardens in Salt Lake City while a thunderstorm raged overhead. The combination of lightning and rain and musicians each blending together riveted me in place—it was like being happily stuck inside a music video. I was fortunate enough to see him tackle jazz alongside Chick Corea some years ago here in Florida, as odd as that might sound on paper. One banjo, one piano, two masters. It was unique for me to want to see it … and to see them successfully pull it off? I should have never had doubts to begin with.

Now I can say I’ve seen Béla play with his wife, the lovely Abigail Washburn, many banjos between them onstage at The Plaza Live. Abigail has to be one of the few banjo players alive who can mesh as well as she does with Béla, serving to complement him and add to all he does. Whether she’s playing alongside him or standing up and singing, it kind of makes you wonder if this is how it should have always been, just the two of them together, making and creating the music they do so well?

Maybe performing with Abigail is what’s going to happen for the rest of Béla’s career, with little to no diversions? It’s not the worst thought in the world to mull around (but it’s not terribly likely either). Still. Big stages filled with 10 banjos, a couple expert fingerpickers and one of the easiest voices to ever rest in these ears; that’s a scenario I could easily look forward to, time after time. It’s some kind of heaven to take in.

If you saw them play last week, you already know you witnessed something truly special. And if you didn’t, well, hope hard for a next time. And while you’re at it? Hope for more albums, more shows, more steady uprising progressions to wherever these two land next.

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn Live Review by Dainon.