Longing for Sunday morning serenity, I was slapped by Saturday night dissipation at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Mondays can be like that.
I’d hoped BEATrio- banjoist Béla Fleck, harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez- would focus on thoughtful meditations on Monday, September 29. Instead, much of the 100-minute set was dedicated to aggressive fusion.
The audience of more than 500 in Helzberg Hall heard a five-minute Sanchez solo, Castañeda’s unwelcome invocation of New Age luminary Andreas Vollenweider and Fleck’s flashy rendering of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Extended showboating by virtuosos who know better was disappointing. Still, the $37.50 I spent on a ticket in the rafters wasn’t wasted. Fleck’s music has been a through line in my life for more than forty years. He’s worth hearing even at his gaudiest.
As when I last attended a Fleck concert in 2021, the volume was disarmingly hushed. Unlike in Portland, however, hippies behaved, allowing appreciation of the crisp sound field. And there were several fleeting moments of quiet beauty.
I may have yearned for more of the kind of spiritual solace Fleck displayed on the transcendent 1996 cross-genre collaboration Tabula Rasa. Even so, I don’t regret hearing three elite musicians show off on a Monday.