Rating:
Genre:
Jazz
Release Date: 10/04/2005
Crossing the Tracks was
Béla Fleck's first solo album, released on LP by
Rounder Records in 1979 (for some reason
Rounder never got around to releasing it on CD until 2005), and it featured an inspired and forward-thinking
string band consisting of
Bob Applebaum on mandolin,
Russ Barenberg on acoustic guitar,
Sam Bush on fiddle,
Mark Schatz on acoustic bass, and
Fleck, then a 20-year-old banjo player with brilliant chops and a
bebop heart.
Fleck gets the
bluegrass monkey off his back with the opening track, a solid version of
Lester Flatt and
Earl Scruggs'
"Dear Old Dixie," and then is free to roam through a gentle and sparkling set of
traditional tunes (
"Growling Old Man and Grumbling Old Woman"),
boogie rags (
Fats Waller's
"How Can You Face Me Now"), airy and elegant originals (
"Inman Square" and the wonderful, endlessly shifting
"Twilight"), and genre-jumping
jazz covers (
Chick Corea's
"Spain"), all done with a bright, joyful élan, before ending things with a beautiful
old-timey version of the
traditional "Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," which features vocals from
Fleck's old
Tasty Licks bandmate
Pat Enright. In time this sort of thing would come to be known as "jazzgrass" or "newgrass," but there really wasn't a name for it in 1979, which certainly didn't stop
Fleck from going there.
Crossing the Tracks is full of subtle innovation, and if it doesn't seem as immediately startling as his later
fusion flights, listen again. All the seeds are there.
~Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
;)
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