Finding Uncommon Ground : Trio Makes an Unusual Mix of Instruments Work

Banjo, mandolin and double bass. It’s an unusual instrumental combination, but it seems to be working for banjoist Bela Fleck, mandolinist Mike Marshall and bassist Edgar Meyer.

The trio--whose backgrounds range from bluegrass to jazz to classical--opened the 1997-98 season for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. And their Sony Classical recording, “Uncommon Ritual,” was praised in--of all places--Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine with the phrase, “Categories be damned, get ready for some unique and serious fun.”

That’s pretty much what listeners can expect Thursday when Meyer, Fleck and Marshall play much of the material from “Uncommon Ritual” at Founders Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Almost indefinable in terms of style, the music passes easily from classical strains to bluegrass rhythms, from near-jazz improvising to Celtic melodies, from New Age atmospherics to a funk groove.

What is this seemingly unlikely trio doing together? In fact, said Meyer, they have been acquainted for quite a while.

“I’ve known Mike and Bela for 15 years,” said Meyer. “And Bela and I, in particular, have been the colleagues who’ve always batted a lot of stuff off each other. So when the possibility arose for us to do something together, I jumped at it. They’re the only two people I know well who have a strong interest and ability in bluegrass music, as well as strong interest and ability in a lot of other things, and that makes it a particularly pleasing musical partnership.”

Meyer, described by San Diego Magazine as “quite simply the best bassist alive,” brought an extensive classical background to the mix. The winner of numerous competitions, he was, in 1994, the first bassist to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

As a composer-performer, he has, in the last few years, premiered three major compositions of his own: a bass concerto (1993), a quintet for bass and string quartet (1995) and a double concerto for bass and cello (1995).

But he also brings more than a passing familiarity with other musical forms and has written a substantial portion of the music that will be played in the “Uncommon Ritual” program.

From 1986 to 1992 he was a member of Strength in Numbers, a progressive bluegrass band that also included Fleck and violinist Mark O’Connor. (Meyer also has collaborated regularly in a classically oriented trio with O’Connor and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.)

“No matter what I’m playing,” he said, “and I think this applies to Bela and Mike, as well, I try to find as many things that I can that are in common--to find a way of [playing] that kind of works in everything, without emphasizing the switching back and forth from one style to another. I try to just be the person I am, with a lot of sensitivity to the genre in which I’m playing.”

Fleck, nearly as musically peripatetic as Meyer, has been playing the instrument since he first heard banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt in the theme music from the “Beverly Hillbillies.”

His own group, the Flecktones, plays an eclectic fusion of jazz, bluegrass and pop and has been an international favorite since it was formed in 1989. The Flecktones were named best jazz group in the 1998 Playboy Magazine Readers Poll, and earlier this year won a Grammy for their Warner Bros. album, “Almost 12.”

“Bela brings a knifelike precision to everything he does,” said Meyer. “Not just in playing but in his whole analysis of what’s going on: Why are we doing this, why are we doing that, should we be playing this, should we be playing that? He’s relentless. And it’s always been that way with us--musically and personally.”

The moderator in this ongoing exchange is often Marshall, who brings, Meyer said, “a sunny disposition and a good-humored, beautiful top to everything he does.”

Marshall has been delivering his good humor and his talent to acoustic music for years, starting out with the Dave Grisman quintet, followed by the band Montreux (which released five albums on Windham Hill). He is a founding member of the Modern Mandolin Quartet (which has four albums on Windham Hill) and plays with the bluegrass group Psychograss.

“Mike has a kind of loose but very powerful rhythm to everything he plays,” noted Meyer. “And that wasn’t quite what I expected when I started playing bluegrass. Because it’s a music that is propelled from the middle of the band, from the two plucked instruments, the mandolin and the banjo. I came in thinking I was going to dominate the rhythmic thing, like a jazz bass player, and that wasn’t the way it worked at all.”

“But I like the way it’s worked out,” Meyer added with a chuckle. “Since I don’t have to play pizzicato so much to maintain the rhythmic time, I get to do a lot of bowing. And, as a classical player, that’s something I’ve been trained to do. So I get to put my best foot forward with this group.”

Above all, this is a trio of artists who clearly enjoy working with each other, which is amply apparent in their music.

“The mixture of Bela’s drive with Mike’s good humor and understatement, along with whatever I bring to the table, seems to be a great combination,” Meyer said. “Sometimes there are pockets of things that all of us know something about, sometimes it’s something that only one person knows.

“But what makes it so much fun is that all of us are interested in exploring all of these things together. And, when we do it right, we take the audience right along with us.”

* Edgar Meyer, Mike Marshall and Bela Fleck play Thursday at Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $44. Info: (714) 556-2787.