Bela Fleck/Zakir Hussain/Edgar Meyer & The Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin
The Melody Of Rhythm-Triple Concert & Music For Trio
E1 Music
www.E1music.us

Time For Three
3 fervent travelers
E1 Music
www.E1music.us
By George W. Harris

Here are a couple of discs that musically cross borders like the way Marco Polo did while traversing the globe, with similar eye opening results.

Bela Fleck, who is the consummate genre-mixing banjo-mandolinist around, teams up with the unlikely sources of tabla master Zakir Hussain and bassist Edgar Meyer as the leading team in front of Slatkin's directed Detroit Symphony. The music effortlessy slides from Appalachian springs to middle and central Asian caravans, with the three artists tugging and pulling together, and then apart like a team of bungie jumpers. Slatkin's orchestra mixes and matches moods, sometimes adding delicate curtains, and other instances breaking in through the screen door, going from soundtrack panoramas to pensive vistas. As Scottie used to say to Star Trek's Captain Kirk, "I ain't seen nuthin' like it before." It's draw remains after multiple listenings, making it more of a potential future direction of modern music than a mere novelty. Important, with out feeling self important.

In the same vein, but for different reasons, there are these three young guys Ranaan Meyer/b and violinists Zech DePue/Nick Kendell who have formed a formidable and wildly eclectic trio for this live recording that mixes gospel ("Hallelujah") bluegrass ("Orange Blossum Special") and wildly intricate undefinable pieces like "Wyoming" and "Forget About It" that bewilder the ears. They can sound like a Mozart String Quartet one instant, and then like something out of Mahavishnu meeting the Grand Ol' Opry the next. Part Aaron Copeland, part Saturday night hoedown, the unison lines of the violins on "Ecuador," for instance, will just draw you in, while you wonder how much more tension they can create before imploding. Quite exciting stuff-search for this one!