Béla Fleck

Banjo master Béla Fleck plays traditional and progressive bluegrass, jazz, classical, and many forms of world music. He served in progressive bluegrass outfit New Grass Revival before forming Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, an innovative fusion outfit wedding jazz, funk, country, bluegrass, and improv. Throughout the '90s and into the 21st century, the Flecktones released 1992's UFO Tofu, 2000's Outbound, and 2006's The Hidden Land. Fleck simultaneously released boundary-pushing solo albums including Tales from the Acoustic Planet (1995) and Perpetual Motion (2001). He also recorded with Toumani Diabaté and Baaba Maal in Africa. The star-studded My Bluegrass Heart appeared in 2022, followed by As We Speak in 2023. In 2024, Fleck issued Rhapsody in Blue, playing the famous composition in several settings including solo, and Remembrance documented his final duo tour with pianist Chick Corea. 2025 saw the release of BEATrio, with harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer/percussionist Antonio Sanchez.