Fast Forward : The Sound of Bela Fleck’s Newly Recharged Flecktones Keeps Progressing

There’s a nice symmetry in banjo player Bela Fleck’s having been asked to record the theme for the “Beverly Hillbillies” movie last year. It was Lester Flatt and Earl Scrugg’s familiar ditty from the original television series (“Let me tell you the story of a man named Jed . . . “) that caught a young Fleck’s ear and turned him toward the banjo in the first place.

But this look back is atypical of the forward-thinking Fleck.

His band, the Flecktones, is arguably the most progressive banjo-centered ensemble on the planet: Fleck’s acoustic picking is heard against hard, electric bass backing and synthesized drums sounds pulled from a guitar-like device called a Synth-Axe Drumitar. And after three years of this jazz, funk and bluegrass hybrid, the Flecktones’ sound continues to evolve.

A quartet when they formed in 1990, the Flecktones lost one of their principal members last year when, after three recordings with the group, keyboardist/harmonica player/multi-instrumentalist Howard Levy left to pursue his own work.

“Some people are band people,” Fleck, 35, explained on the phone from his home in Nashville this week, “and some people are solo people. People who know Howard say they’re not surprised that he left but that he was in the band for three years.”

The loss of someone whose versatility added so much to the Flecktones’ sound might seem a crippling blow. But Fleck kept the core of his group together--bassist Victor Lemonte Wooten and his brother, percussionist Future Man (Roy Wooten)--and the Flecktones now operate as a trio. They play Sunday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

The shrinkage in manpower has actually expanded the band’s sound, Fleck said.

“We’re using more effects to make it work,” he said. “I have a synthesizer hooked up to my banjo and can trigger percussion and vibes and other weird effects. Everybody in the band has new things to work with. Future Man has floor pedals that run a computer, and Victor has sounds he also can control from the floor. He also plays two basses at once, with one suspended on a stand. But the banjo is still central.”

The result of all this powering-up is the band’s latest release, “Three Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” an effort that finds the Flecktones joined on some numbers by Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby.

Fleck says the same rules that applied to the band when it was a quartet apply now. “It’s the same approach: We try to make music that’s complete no matter how many people are playing. The trio works fine if you arrange for it. In fact, certain kinds of material work better with a trio.”

Fleck, who was raised in New York City, picked up the banjo as a sophomore at the respected Manhattan School of Music and Art. “I was in the chorus there,” he recalls, “and was exposed to stuff that most banjo players never were.”

After moving through several bluegrass bands, Fleck joined the groundbreaking New Grass Revival in 1981. The group opened his ears to more contemporary applications of traditional instruments, and the idea for the Flecktones, he said, practically generated itself.

“The group just fell into place. I was in a band and had no intention of leaving. Then Victor (Wooten) called me out of the blue and played his bass over the phone to me and blew my mind. I wanted to play more jazz on the banjo but hadn’t really had the opportunity and hadn’t found the musicians.”

Fleck said the Wooten brothers definitely inspired the Flecktone direction.

“These guys are more than jazz musicians,” Fleck said. “They’re very flexible. With them, it doesn’t just have to be jazz; they’re willing to try anything as long as there’s a good way to present it. And that’s what attracted me to them, their open-minded attitudes.”

Though funk may be the most apparent form in the Flecktones’ mix, other styles contribute as well.

“We’re definitely influenced by Irish folk music and various types of other roots music: folk, blues, New Orleans and country,” Fleck said. “And there’s obviously a jazz attitude. But there’s also a classical influence. My stepfather was a cello player and I grew up hearing string quartets. Though I’m no aficionado, it snuck into my head and influences my voicings.”

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Fleck’s next recording project will include the Flecktones but will be released under his own name.

“It will be a lot more acoustic and a lot less commercial--a whole different emotional approach,” he said. “There’ll be a lot of guests. I want to explore, go into the studio and fool around with as many people as I want on any particular song.”

The urge to explore his music more deeply has encouraged Fleck to cut back on a busy road schedule.

“I’ve been trying to make it saner, but we still go out on 120 dates or so each year, though that’s half of what we did when we first started. But the gigs are better, so we don’t have to beat ourselves up on the road so much now. We’re getting to practice in a more relaxed fashion, with time to recharge. We didn’t do that the first few years.”

Living in Nashville, as he has for 14 years, also encourages exploration, he said. “It’s a sane place to live. And there’s an outlet to the rest of the music business from here, without being victimized by the New York or Los Angeles scene. There are wonderful musicians here, especially acoustic musicians. It’s a little bit secluded--there’s not that much musical inspiration in a jazz sense--but that’s OK if you have plenty going on in your head. It’s the perfect place for someone like me, coming out of the bluegrass arena and turning left.”

* Bela Fleck and the Flecktones play Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $15. (714) 496-8930. * Times Link 808-8463

To hear a sample of the album “Three Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones call TimesLink and press *5581