Bela Fleck & Sandip Burman

October 26, 2000

The Ark

Ann Arbor, MI

Bela Fleck and Sandip Burman’s short duo tour pulled into Ann Arbor’s intimate Ark for two shows last Thursday. I have been a fan of Fleck’s Jazz/Bluegrass banjo stylings for a quite awhile, but I had only seen him with his excellent longtime backing band, The Flecktones, previously. I was not familiar with Sandip Burman before this night. I only knew he was an Indian musician who played on the Flecktones last recording, which I haven’t heard yet either. The show sounded like a good opportunity to see Bela play in a very small club and with a new partner. I got tickets to the late show, which started at 9:30. I got into line and soon the audience of the early show let out and they all seemed to be in a good mood so I hoped that boded well for our show.

I got inside and saw that the stage was set up with simply a chair, a cushion, a tabla set and several microphones. After a while, Bela and Sandip took the stage. Bela took the chair and Sandip sat on the cushion in front of the tablas. They quietly said hello and started playing right away. Bela played some kind of hybrid banjo on the first tune and it must have some filter on it that gave it a very sitar-esque sound. The whole song was either an actual traditional Indian song or heavily influenced by Indian music. Bela sounded great in this setting and it was obvious that Sandip was a virtuoso on tablas.

The night progressed and on some tunes Bela played the crazy banjo from the first song and on others he played a traditional banjo. Sandip played solo tabla pieces while Bela watched in amazement with the rest of the audience. It is a testament to both men’s musical abilities that they had such a musical rapport. Indian music is full of complicated rhythm patterns that I don’t even pretend to understand, but Bela obviously did and you could see him concentrating and counting off the beats as he played. Bela at one point referred to their collaboration as a "cultural experiment" and it was indeed an unlikely one. Banjo and tabla are an unlikely combination and Burman and Fleck are also at unlikely pairing on first glance too. Bela looks like chubbier Matthew Broderick and Sandip comes off as an Indian version of Sonny Bono, but they obviously share a common musical bond.

Bela played several of his solo tunes including one called "Katmandu" which the audience soaked up. He also played a long Bach piece unaccompanied that he said was part of a Classical album he is working on. At one point Bela asked Sandip "What should we play next?, to which Sandip replied, "How about a banjo/tabla duet?" Everybody laughed because that is of course what they played all night long.

Overall it was an exciting evening of musical collaborations by two masters of their instruments. It was really fun to see Bela’s in this new setting and it only deepened my appreciation for his playing.