MUSIC REVIEW : Eclectic Flecktones Build Fans

Category-defying groups such as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones constantly face the danger of falling through music industry cracks, a fact underscored by a recent argument overheard between two Tower Records employees.

One questioned why the band was filed under “folk,” when they’re jazz musicians. The other insisted that because Fleck plays electric banjo, the band definitely is not jazz, winning only the half-hearted concession that the quartet’s music still is closer to jazz than to folk or any other genre.

Ultimately, however, the Flecktones won: The store was sold out of the group’s first two albums and was doing reasonably brisk business with the new one, “UFO Tofu,” thanks in large part to the word-of-mouth network that has been buzzing about the band since its emergence two years ago. Fan-to-fan proselytizing also accounted for the respectable crowd of 1,000 that turned out for the Flecktones’ concert Tuesday night at the 1,200-seat Humphrey’s venue.

Though the band attracted a sizable, mostly curious audience when they played at last summer’s Street Scene, a large percentage of Tuesday’s audience responded when Fleck, 34, asked how many were hearing the band live for the first time. What those initiates would learn is that the Flecktones’ appeal is equal parts instrumental muscle, novelty and an approach to performance that draws the listener in with a musical twist on reverse psychology.

For the record, the Flecktones’ all-instrumental music is a catholic braid of jazz, bluegrass, rock, funk, blues, pop, ethnic, classical and filmic. The quartet weaves those generic strands into tuneful, linear patterns marked by lithe rhythms and jazz-fusion-ish phrases.

In concert, the band’s compositions--most of them written by Fleck--serve as foundations for improvisational tangents that showcase the prodigious skills of Fleck, bassist Victor Wooten, keyboardist-mouth harpist Howard Levy, and percussionist Roy (Future Man) Wooten. The band’s resident enigma, Future Man roamed the stage dressed like a pirate, playing a full range of “drum set” sounds by tapping various pad-like triggers on a Synthaxe guitar-synthesizer, which he modified into something called a Drumitar.

The first half of the Flecktones’ 100-minute performance recapitulated the band’s first two releases, 1990’s self-titled opus and last year’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo.” The skittish fusion riffing of the former’s “They’re Here” set the pace, and the latter’s swinging reinvention of the Beatles’ “Michelle” provided fertile ground, both for Levy’s amazing harmonica work and for Fleck’s idiosyncratic banjo picking.

Somehow, the lanky Levy coaxes chromatic, single-note lines--a la Toots Thielemans or Stevie Wonder--from a standard diatonic harp, making it the Flecktones’ main melody instrument. On “Michelle,” he swung in and out of the melody--bending, slurring and stretching notes into winsome phrases uncharacteristic of the blues harmonica. Fleck played an electric banjo custom-made for him by San Diego-based Deering banjos. The instrument allowed him a wide expressive range, from the legato lines of an electric guitar, to single-picked notes more reminiscent of a Japanese koto.

The Wooten brothers’ rhythm section percolated throughout the mix. Vic provided everything from slap-bass accents to nail-down fundamentals, from rumbling grooves to sonorous counter-melodies. Future Man supplied deft punctuation, lifting the sound on a soft spray of cymbals one moment, breaking the rhythms into funk clusters the next.

By the time the Flecktones dipped into the new album’s material, they’d established one significant factor in their appeal as a concert act: When you don’t play too loud, you draw an audience into the spaces in your music. Because they’re listening attentively, the most subtle shift in dynamics can be propulsive.

Because of the band’s moderate amplification, a listener could easily converse with those nearby, and yet the sound was anything but wimpy. Four successive songs from “UFO Tofu” spotlighted the Flecktones’ gloved punch, its random arrangement of percussives that emulate pressure-cooked popcorn.

On the James Taylor-evoking “Bonnie and Slyde,” Fleck employed a slide bar (suggested to him by Bonnie Raitt, hence the title) to effect both the folksiest, and, during his solo, the bluesgrassiest feels of the night. “Sex in a Pan” kicked with a funky gait inspired by James Brown.

“Life Without Elvis” featured a duet between Levy on harmonica and Future Man on Drumitar that quickly became a four-man duel. Against a backdrop of the latter’s assertive beats and rolls, Levy changed gears from virtuosic single-note harp improvs to huffing blues phrases. Like seconds, Fleck and Wooten moved into the fray, and eventually all four musicians were pounding out contrapuntal rhythms on Fleck’s banjo and Wooten’s bass, much to the crowd’s delight.

Levy, who played a lovely, Celtic-flavored pennywhistle soliloquy as a prelude to the new album’s “Magic Fingers,” proved his keyboard mettle on “UFO Tofu.” The title is a palindrome, and, accordingly, the music incorporates three long, knotted phrases that are rapidly played backward and forward. Playing grand piano, Levy matched both Fleck’s and Wooten’s furious finger work note for note, after which he fell off the piano bench in relief.

Bassist Wooten was spotlighted on the set-closer, the first album’s “The Sinister Minister.” Displaying scary technical facility, Wooten ranged from hummingbird-quick flights of fancy to nasty funk statements and even managed to throw in crowd-pleasing quotes from the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” and Bach’s “Prelude in C Major.”

On a night of musical surprises and spontaneous combustion, even the encore was an unexpected treat. Local boogie-woogie pianist A.J. Croce, who opened the show with his band, joined the Flecktones for an arrangement of “Royal Garden Blues” patterned after the Branford Marsalis recording. Croce soloed on the ivories with the adrenaline verve one would expect from a player thrown into such a situation, and the other musicians, smiling broadly, took their cue from his energy.

Judging from the crowd’s response, it’s a safe bet there will be a number of second-timers at the Flecktones’ next San Diego gig.