As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, Featuring Rakesh Chaurasia

As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer featuring Rakesh Chaurasia

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Doors 7 p.m. | Show 8 p.m.

Tickets start at $34 (incl. fees)

Upper Balcony $34

Balcony $49

Loge $69

Main Floor $84

This show is not included in season ticket packages. No dinner service at this show. Concessions and the bars will be open. All Ages. Bars for 21+.

Bremerton's Admiral Theatre is proud to present As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer featuring Rakesh Chaurasia - all masters of their craft with an astonishing 30 GRAMMY Awards between them.

Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer are virtuoso musicians and collaborators from three entirely different musical realms — bluegrass for Fleck, Indian classical music for Hussain, and Western classical music for Meyer. Sharing a gift for improvisation, they reach across musical genres as casually as neighbors might chat over a backyard fence.

Their latest collaboration, As We Speak showcases the group’s breathtaking versatility as instrumentalists — gliding easily between the cerebral complexity of Indian rhythm, the gut-level groove of a funky bass line, and the rigors of raga. Rakesh Chaurasia, a young master of the bansuri, an Indian bamboo flute, joins the group, adding to the magic.

*********

The first-time banjo legend Béla Fleck, tabla master Zakir Hussain, and double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer got together to make an album, it was to write, not to play.

When Fleck and Meyer were looking for a third partner for a triple concerto, they had been commissioned to write to mark the opening of Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, they thought of Hussain, who was quite interested in orchestral writing. “We thought we could learn a whole lot from this guy!” says Béla. The result was The Melody of Rhythm (2009), recorded with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin.

It wasn’t until the three began touring to promote the album that the trio’s true potential became apparent. Although each had a base in a different musical realm — bluegrass for Fleck, Indian classical music for Hussain, and Western classical music for Meyer — they shared a gift for improvisation as well as an ability to reach across musical genres as casually as neighbors might chat over a backyard fence.” When we are performing on stage, in composing mode or creating mode, we are basically having a conversation,” says Hussain. “So, the music emerges as we speak.”

Hence As We Speak, an album that not only showcases the group’s breathtaking abilities as instrumentalists but underscores the wide range of musical influences at their command. Across a dozen tracks, the group glides easily between the cerebral complexity of Indian rhythm and the gut-level groove of a funky bass line, sounding equally at home with the rigors of raga.

Adding to that magic is Rakesh Chaurasia, who plays bansuri, an Indian bamboo flute. When the trio was touring India, Hussain — who knew Rakesh through his uncle, Indian flute legend Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia — invited the younger flautist to sit in, and the chemistry was immediately apparent. “I think we wanted to see if we could do something a little more organic with just a small group,” says Meyer. “And to have somebody who plays as beautifully as Rakesh join us really opened it up to a more lyrical and melodic situation.”

“What I think is good about this quartet is that everybody has to stretch in the direction of the other people,” adds Fleck. “To me, a collaboration where nobody changes is not a collaboration. It’s a mashup. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I like a collaboration where I have to learn a bunch of new things from the other people. And in this case, I’m learning like crazy.”

Béla Fleck

Few musicians in any category seem as uncategorizable as Béla Fleck. After initially making his mark with the progressive bluegrass group New Grass Revival, Fleck proceeded to take his instrument, as New York Times critic Jon Pareles noted, “to some very unlikely places.” He formed the Flecktones, a groundbreaking group whose repertoire ranged from fusion to Bach; the group celebrates its 46th anniversary this year. In addition, he has played jazz with Chick Corea, American roots with his partner, banjoist Abigail Washburn, written concertos for banjo and orchestra, and created a documentary film and album, Throw Down Your Heart, that examined the banjo’s African roots. Along the way, he has won 16 Grammys across 10 categories.